Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Senator Crown's Bill also echoes the type of fresh air and grown-up politics we need in this country. I am glad that the Government, at least on this occasion, is not opposing Second Stage. I hope that follows through into Committee and Report Stages, because the time has come in this House - and, indeed, in the Lower House - that we started taking a more mature approach to Private Members' Bills that come from people with certain expertise, like Senators Crown, Barrett and others. It is a pity that this culture, which is beginning slowly but surely to happen in this House, under the leadership of Senators Cummins and Bacik, is not shown in the Dáil. The people voted to keep this House and we are slowly taking baby steps to acknowledge the fact that the people voted to keep this House by taking a mature approach to Private Members' Bills.

The vast majority of people - in fact, all the Members elected to this House whom I know - are here because they want to do the right thing for Ireland, for the citizens of Ireland and for the people who pay taxes and find themselves in some cases without jobs and so on. People who find themselves being defamed by institutions are citizens and taxpayers as well. I acknowledge the example Senator Bacik gave earlier about RTE. RTE acted in extreme haste in that particular case. It was probably afraid of potential bullying and just gave in, which is a shame, because it is not what I would call fair process. Similarly, organisations such as the HSE, and their power, wealth and status in society, can bully ordinary individual citizens. They can threaten to sue someone for defamation. It makes sense that one would be talking about damages of €1 and that it would certainly be curtailed. I welcome the Bill. It is a necessary Bill and I look forward to seeing how this progresses on Committee Stage, because the Minister has rightly pointed out that there are concerns about the Bill, but they are technical concerns, I hope, and can be dealt with on Committee Stage. I would like to see the same mature engagement on Committee Stage from all sides on this Bill that we are seeing today. Hopefully we will improve in a small way the defamation laws in this country as a result.