Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have given much consideration to this since Monday as the debate in the House was very good and provided much food for thought. I considered a few aspects.

In journalism we are dealing with professionals who have come through college, in the main, and been taught about defamation and legal limitations in the practice of their art and skill. This will form part of that process and it will be a significant event in halting the ability of journalists to name victims of crime, including the ultimate horrific crime of homicide. In that regard I have full faith in their training and the fact that the Law Reform Commission has published consolidated documentation on the legislation. Anybody bound by law in the practice of the profession generally has an awareness of that legislation. We would not be dealing with Joe Smith on the street but rather people who in the very act of carrying out their job will see legal implications. That will happen and in that way we are dealing with the same text, albeit laid out with different numbering. I support the Minister's resistance in this regard as the amendments are clearly inserted where they should be. Any other text or issuance from the Departments dealing with children or justice matters does not have to be amended as the reference numbers will be the same. There is coherence.

I have gone back on forth on the provisions in subsections 2 and 2A and there is an entitlement of incremental dispensing of this prohibition.That is qualified by subsection 2A but not prohibitively so. As long as the judge gives his or her determination in the public court on why he or she has made the decision he or she has made - because there is a further section which obliges that - then it can be incremental. It can be to limit the naming of a child witness, while still permitting the naming of the child victim or victims. That is coherently found and contained within section 2 of the Act and within the Government's amendment to it. This will be all right because it makes sense and there is a proper qualification in there that I am comfortable with.