Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)

I do not claim in any way to have the legal mind that Senator McDowell has. I am just trying to get my head around the legislation and understanding it. I am coming at it from a lay-person's point of view and from listening to business owners. Imagine a scenario in Senator McDowell's butcher shop where merchandise is scattered around the shop in lanes, aisles and areas that staff cannot see.Somebody might slip something into their pocket and maybe the staff see it, but then, by the time the person gets to the front of the shop, the item is no longer in their pocket. If the retailer asks if they have a receipt, the person might say, "Oh my God, I don't but you've said that in public, everyone has heard it and I'm now going to take a case against you." There is a big difference between somebody being a shareholder in a company and somebody taking a defamation case, which is a lot less.

I am spokesperson for my party on enterprise. My colleague Senator Mary Fitzpatrick and I hear all the time from businesses and retailers that this is a massive issue. There is a reason that Ireland has had more cases than the UK has had over the past 15 years. Last year, we had nine more cases than there were in the UK because defamation is a new thing that people can do in shops. I have no clue as to which section we are supposed to change to make this better. I am hoping that we can do something for retailers and for shoppers in shops so that they can ask people for a receipt or ask if the item has been paid for.

I totally agree with the Minister's point on insurance companies. They look at the bottom line and decide it is a lot cheaper to give somebody €7,000 than it is to bring somebody to court for €30,000. Unfortunately, they settle and will not fight those cases. I would love to be in a world where they do fight them.

One of the amendments I have tabled, in my slight innocence in all this, is to cap the damages. Is that the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do? It worked in insurance. Is it the right thing to do here? Should we just change the definition of defamation completely and have something like a harm test to protect those working in shops, so they are able to ask, "Did you pay for that item?" They are just run ragged with all this. It has featured on "Prime Time", the news and various radio programmes. They are coming to us. I really hope we can do something to help address that. As I said, that is coming from me as a layperson but also as a business person. I am standing up for businesses here.