Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)

Like my colleague, Senator Fitzpatrick, I also want to speak on this amendment. Senator Fitzpatrick mentioned RGDATA. We have been inundated with correspondence on this. It seems to me that everyone wants to see something happen with regard to defamation to support businesses and shop owners. Retail Excellence Ireland has been in touch, as has ISME, RGDATA, and the Alliance for Insurance Reform. I have been inundated with emails about this and we have spent a lot of time discussing it because it is so important.

On this section, I urge the Minister to look again at the definition of defamation before Report Stage because I really feel that we have missed something there. I am worried that the absence of a harm test means a person who has not been defamed can initiate a defamation action against another person, inflicting legal costs. According to the Courts Service data portal, 292 defamation cases were filed in the Circuit Court and 68 in the High Court, giving a total of 360 cases, in 2023 in Ireland. Comparative case numbers show that there were 250 defamation cases issued in England and Wales in 2023. There were 250 such cases over there and 360 here, but ten times more people live in the UK than here. This does not make sense. The UK implemented reforms to its Defamation Act in 2013 which became effective in January 2014. The most notable impact has been a significant fall in defamation cases. I am proposing an amendment to section 8 but would urge the Minister to look again at the definition of a defamatory statement in the principal Act and to replace it on Report Stage.

The Minister has been good enough to speak to me about this Bill and to discuss my worries about it. He is a very approachable person. I am very much about small businesses. I hear in my own town of Navan and all around Meath that shopkeepers do not even stop people from taking a drink out of the fridge and walking out of the shop. People can just rock in and get it and there are two reasons for this. One is that gardaí are under a lot of pressure to come for all these cases and two, more importantly, shopkeepers cannot stop them for fear they will be sued for defamation. The Minister rightly said that businesses should fight these cases, and in an ideal world, it would be amazing to fight cases, but I have done my research on this. Defamation is the new minor injury claim, particularly exaggerated or fraudulent, because it is too easy. For example, with minor injury claims we now we have the Injuries Resolution Board and medical reports. Awareness has been raised in this area through the work done by the Government in recent years. We have a brand new action plan on all of this, and the Minister has very much helped in that space so that we can get to the stage of having fair and competitive insurance. However, when it comes to defamation I have been reliably informed by people in the Minister's profession that it is easy to fight on behalf of a claimant and that unless you have an absolutely watertight case, an insurer will not fight it.

When a shopkeeper signs up to an insurance policy, it is the insurer who decides whether to invest €30,000 in fighting a case, not the shopkeeper. Dubious claims can be brought with little or no risks to the claimant while the business, even if it successfully defends itself, is often unable to recover its legal costs. This forces insurers to settle many suspect claims and drives up premiums for small businesses already struggling with the costs of doing business. Some examples given to me by Retail Excellence Ireland include a €12,000 settlement for an eight-year-old claiming defamation after being barred from a shop for suspected theft, a €12,000 settlement for a teenager who produced a receipt from a different shop after being stopped for the suspected theft of a bottle of Coca-Cola, and a €6,000 settlement for a 14-year-old accused of shoplifting sweets. We see individual settlements of €7,500 to €12,000 for minors and legal defence costs of €15,000 to €50,000, even when retailers win. The operational impact is that staff are afraid to check receipts or to stop suspected theft. The projected impact of amendments to the Bill include the elimination of frivolous €7,000-plus settlements, the restoration of staff confidence if we do something in this defamation Bill on loss prevention, a significant reduction in retail crime which is currently costing millions, a stabilisation in insurance premiums, and Ireland being more aligned with European business norms.

If we cannot do something here on this Stage, I urge the Minister to consider introducing something on Report Stage that will help small businesses and retailers. I have been sitting here for many hours listening to people talking about this issue. It is very important to me in my role as a representative of businesses. I understand that the Minister is not going to accept any amendments today. I will probably have to withdraw my own amendment but I would urge the Minister to consider the issue further prior to Report Stage.