Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I regret that response from the Minister. To compare this to Cabinet confidentiality is nonsensical. Cabinet confidentiality applies to many things and it can be breached by a Minister who just briefs a journalist and the journalist is free to say that the Green Party at Cabinet was opposed to this, the Fianna Fáil members were opposed to that or the Fine Gael members supported something else. That can of course be breached. However, here we are dealing with something which the Minister is saying merits a sentence of five years imprisonment in the legislation. A member of An Garda Síochána can without warrant arrest a person they suspect of having committed this offence. A person found to have deliberately leaked it can be fined €50,000. However, the person to whom it has been leaked can then publish it freely.The Minister just said that. She said she does not want to criminalise anybody who gets this information and puts it on the front of a newspaper. I really get angry when I think about what the Minister just said, which is that a newspaper reporter who has this material is free to put it on the front page of the Irish Independentor The Irish Timeswithout any penalty whatsoever. The Minister said the amendment casts the net too widely. Who does the damage? The person who slips the information to the reporter publishes it to one person. If a person goes on "Prime Time" and says that this is what happened and that Judge So-and-so was turned down by a narrow majority of the judicial appointments commission or that a senior partner in a large solicitors' firm applied to be a judge and was flung out on his ear as totally unsuitable, the Minister is saying that can be published once it comes into the hands of a media source by whatever means. The damage is done by its publication. That is what this amendment is about. It is not about breaking confidence. That is one bad thing but the real damage is done if people who apply to the judicial appointments commission to be recommended find that a newspaper can simply fling that information out into the public because it arrived on its court reporter's desk in a brown paper envelope.

Is there anything wrong with my amendment? Does the Minister really want to say that it is casting the net too widely and that somebody on the commission can go to jail if they do this but that anybody who receives information is scot-free to publish it? You cannot use conspiracy, aiding and abetting or any other offence because what will happen is that the information will come to a reporter on "Prime Time" in a brown paper envelope with a note saying "Here is the file." It will not be traceable. The receiver will claim journalistic privilege and do all of these things and damage will be done if the process is made public. I would bet my bottom dollar that any newspaper editor who got that material would go for it in a big way. It would tell the Irish people precisely what is happening behind the scenes and that Ms Justice So-and-so was considered an inadequate judge to be promoted, that Mr. So-and-so was considered an inadequate barrister to be made a judge or that a partner in one of our largest solicitors' firms was considered wholly unsuitable to be a judge. That is the kind of information that, if it were to come out, newspapers and the media in general would go for without any doubt. They will not be committing the offence of conspiracy or aiding and abetting anything. They will simply be publishing something given to them. Under the protection of journalists' sources and all the rest of it, they will just simply publish.

I implore the Minister to accept this amendment. If this whole Bill ends up in the Supreme Court and the judges are considering the debates and what went on in this House, what does the Minister believe they will think of this? What numbing effect will it have on applications to the judicial appointments commission that, if material comes available by any chance, everyone but those who did the actual leaking are free to publicise it and put it on the front of a newspaper? I really think this is a very damaging loophole in the Bill as it is before us. I really implore the Minister to accept the amendment.