Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I believe the Minister is now saying that the scenario I mentioned is incorrect. If I understand her, she is saying that if a 16-year-old child, for instance, is the only witness to the murder of a 12-year-old child, nothing can be published in the court report identifying the victim, insofar as the victim's identity would tend to identify the witness' identity. If that is the law towards which we are going, it is a profound mistake. There should be flexibility. It is wrong for the parents of a deceased child to be in a position where, because one of their other children was a witness in the case, the identity of their deceased child cannot be made public. It certainly was not my intention or Deputy O'Callaghan's intention, when we tabled proposals to reverse the Court of Appeals decision, to drive the law down that particular cul-de-sac.

I listened to what Senator Seery Kearney said. It is all very well to say that journalists are well trained. However, an already-qualified journalist who was trying to report on this section could not make head nor tail of it. I am just saying that as a matter of fact. They told me that they could not make head nor tail of what had been decided the other day in Dáil Éireann. I mentioned the categories of practitioners including judges, witnesses, family members and journalists. Now we also have another bracket of people, which is those who comment on trials on social media. They do not get training about what the law means but they are entitled to find it out. If they are presumed to know what the criminal law of the State is, they are presumably entitled to find it out in some intelligible form. They should not have to do a diploma or degree in law to work out whether a comment they make expressing sympathy for a witness who is a sibling of the deceased would contravene the law. It is not enough just to walk away from this issue and say that journalists are fully trained on the matter. Other people are entitled to know what the law is, particularly people who might make a public comment on it, such as politicians who are asked to comment on the outcome of a case. People commenting on social media are also entitled to have a clear law.

The Minister did not say that there is anything wrong or risky about the amendment Senators Craughwell and Boyhan and I have put forward, or that there would be any unforeseen consequence to adopting it. It has not been suggested that there is a problem with it. The Minister said there might be a problem in that somebody writing an article about the Court of Appeals judgment might find it difficult to explain to somebody reading a book what the new section actually meant, but that does not really stand up. The priority here is to have a law that is intelligible to most people, not only to people who read legal textbooks. I still believe my amendment is appropriate.