Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not without sympathy on this matter and I agree a degree of nuance in the hands of a judge would be beneficial. A judge would be trustworthy. There may be difficulty, however, in that we are living in a social media age and the hard facts of the last number of years have been that witnesses, including children, have been named, subject to abuse online and hounded in their communities and in schools. In particularly hard cases, that has occurred. If we put a provision in law, we will find ourselves in a position where we intend a judge to apply nuance but that nuance will be permitted in a social media field.

Before we move from what is a very rigid position, we must consider that context. Some of the experiences of children who went to the same school in certain cases were fairly horrific in recent years. The sense of entitlement under the guise of free speech to put content on social media has been used and abused to the detriment of a child. I agree with some of the points made but I can also see a reason to protect a sibling witness with anonymity because of the particularly harsh environment that is social media.In any consideration of a very well-made argument we must consider that larger context, that if we give discretion or we look at nuance, we are also fettering the ability to rely on section 51, which is the criminal offence element of it. We may have an implication of nuance in that context, and I am concerned about that.