Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I do not dispute what Senator Ó Murchú said. It is a truism that good news is not news, as Erskine Childers said. One has to accept that in this business. I accept what the Senator said about the excellence of public service broadcaster's coverage of last year's visits of the Queen of England and the President of the United States and last weekend's visit of the Chinese Vice Premier. I agree that "they did it exceptionally well".

We are living in rapidly changing times like we have never seen before. The traditional media is under considerable pressure. Considerable economic obstacles are preventing the traditional media from functioning as it did in the past. The development of new media is inevitable. I do not think there is a great deal of point in us juxtaposing one type of media with the other. It is and is going to be one media. The question of how we regulate that was raised by a number of Senators, most passionately by Senator Norris. We need to deal with what the Senator referred to as an entirely unjustified "invasion of privacy", for example.

When the Press Council was being established, consideration was given to whether it should be accompanied by a privacy Act. The Government of the day engaged in negotiations on whether this country's press council should be formed on a statutory basis and accompanied by privacy legislation. A number of Ministers in that Government went on the record to advocate the necessity for privacy legislation. It was decided to "suck it and see", so to speak. In other words, the decision was to see how a non-statutory press council would function. Senator Norris has dismissed the Press Council of Ireland with a wave of his majesterial hand. My opinion is that it is too early to say, as Zhou Enlai said about the French Revolution. It has been in existence for just four years. I suggest that given the tasks that have been put to it, the council has performed much better than-----