Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I remind Senator Daly that his party was in government in 2004 when my legal office identified a major defect in legislation involving people in nursing homes. We found that 80% of their pension was being deducted and no legislation gave power to the health boards to do that. The response of the Government in 2004 was to immediately rush legislation through the Dáil and Seanad in three days which tried to make legislation retrospective. In fairness to the then President, Mary McAleese, she had the foresight to send that Bill to the Supreme Court and in February 2005 the Supreme Court struck the legislation down. It is nice that I should be able to remind Senator Daly that his party was in power when that occurred, just in case he thinks the decision was made by civil servants. That was a decision made by his party when it was in power.

This Bill is welcome because the Minister of State outlined quite clearly that section 5 of the Defamation Act 2009 states that it must be reviewed within five years. That review is now being carried out. It is important for this debate to take place as part of that review procedure. The day of passing legislation which is set in stone forever is over. Circumstances change all the time. It is important that we respond to those changes.

I will give an example of my concern about this Bill. If someone made adverse comments about something the Voluntary Health Insurance, VHI, a State entity, was doing, that detrimentally affected its ability to compete on the market this legislation would impose restrictions on it. That is a cause for concern especially when one considers that VHI competes with non-State organisations. The Minister of State referred to this aspect of the draft Bill.

The 2009 Act clearly sets out a defence of the truth being told. It is a defence to plead absolute privilege, qualified privilege, honest opinion, fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest. People are not restricted from criticising State entities or companies or organisations such as the Health Service Executive, HSE. It is important that organisations are criticised. Yesterday, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children heard a very robust presentation from the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, criticising aspects of the management of the ambulance service. I raised already in the House this morning the fact that people at management level acknowledge they do not have the skills.

HIQA is doing a very job in highlighting this issue. It is not leaving itself exposed by making this criticism because it is a valid criticism. While the debate is welcome, we need to be careful to ensure there is balance. The Defamation Act 2009 provides that balance. Certainly let us review it and this is the process for doing that. As a Member who has been involved in bringing forward Private Members' Bills there is a great deal of work involved and I compliment Senator Crown and his staff and everyone involved on bringing it forward because it forces onto the floor of the House a debate on this matter. It also ensures that everyone has the right to put forward an opinion on how to deal with legislation in this area in the future. I welcome Senator Crown's contribution. I hope his concerns can be dealt with in the review and, if necessary, in amending legislation.