Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are trying to prevent it from getting to that stage. We have a €50,000 fine and the potential for five years in prison. The fault lies squarely with the person who shares the information. It is not just "Prime Time", the Irish Independentor the Daily Mail. What happens if somebody finds such material on a bus and decides to share it on Facebook, as does the next person and the next until 50,000 people share it?Are we then going to hold each and every one of them responsible, fine them, charge them and apply this €250,000? The responsibility lies solely with the people who have this information, as it should. It should not be just "Well if this happens and 'Prime Time' receives this". We live in a digital era. We live in a world where somebody says something and it is seen by millions of people and repeated millions of times. One has to look at that logic when applying this. It is not just about the newspapers being sold; it is about social media and how far to cast the net out. The idea that every single person who shared it or put it into print or online would have all of these fines casts it too far out. It has to be that the responsibility lies with the person who slips it to the reporter, who leaves it on the bus or who puts the information out there.

If they do not want to work in an office or be part of a team where they can contribute to and make sure that there is confidentiality here, then they should not be part of that team. To my knowledge to date, people working in the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board - those working with any of the people who will actually be sitting on this commission - respect their job and the role that they work in. On the idea that this would be shared - it has not happened to date. We are speaking hypothetically.

Again, the responsibility must lie with the person who shared it. That is what we are trying to do here. I just do not see how, in the era that we live in, you could fine potentially thousands of people for sharing something. That is what happens and we cannot prevent it from happening. Sometimes you would love to stop it from exploding the way it does, but we cannot prevent that from happening. Legislating for it in that way is not the right way to do it.