Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is worthwhile pointing out that subsection (2) in the Minister's amendment No. 1 provides that the amendments affected by subsection (1) "shall, on and from the date on which this section comes into operation, apply to the publication or inclusion in a broadcast of a report or picture to which section 252(1) of the Children Act 2001 applies, irrespective of whether the proceedings referred to in that subsection were commenced before that date". I presume the Minister agrees that it does not matter whether the proceedings were completed before that date as long as this provision is retrospective in its entirety to anything that happened before the Bill is passed. Therefore, in previous cases of child homicides where there have been convictions and so on, the section will not have the effect of prohibiting the republication of reports of those cases that, as we later found out when the Court of Appeal considered the matter, were improperly reported.