Gerard Craughwell (Independent)

I thank the Minister. He has destroyed some of my paperwork in his answers, but that is fine. I want to go back to section 34A(d). The Minister made points in his speech about a couple of things, one of which was judge-made law. We are very lucky in this country that judges can make law and, indeed, some of the laws they make can be challenged by other judges or changed by other judges. That is a good thing. The Minister also made the point that we do not want to be too prescriptive. In legislation, we want to allow as much flexibility as we possibly can and trust our legal system to deliver fair and just results for litigants at all times. When it comes to Report Stage, is there any chance the Minister would stop in section 34A(d) at "the use in bad faith of procedural tactics" and leave that discretion to the Judiciary and let the Judiciary make up its mind as to what is and is not bad faith and what are and are not procedural tactics? If we look at it from a plaintiff's point of view, to have these things thrown in there could make a layman a little bit afraid. I trust the Judiciary in this country. Maybe I am wrong, but I do.

I want to go back to amendment No. 13. The Minister has said he will not accept this amendment, which seeks to delete the fairly strong phrase “manifestly unfounded”. The Minister makes the point that there is little evidence in Ireland of people taking cases to frustrate or delay people. There is a very high-profile businessman in this country who, between 2015 and 2018, took a case against The Irish Times. He brought multiple defamation proceedings against media outlets following the coverage of financial dealings. The suits were widely criticised as attempts to intimidate journalists and chill reporting on matters of public interest. I have not named the individual. I do not believe I should, at this stage. Even though some of the claims were unsuccessful, the litigation consumed significant resources and created a chilling effect on investigative reporting. One of the things I find - the Minister is in politics like I am - is that there is very little of what used to be investigative reporting in this country. The best example we have is "Prime Time Investigates" but in print media, there is very little by way of genuine investigative reporting, in my view.

There was another case taken between a voluntary group and developers. It was an environmental NGO that was involved. Community activists faced defamation threats from a developer when opposing a planning project. Ireland Anti-SLAPPs Network's submission to the justice committee highlighted that as a classic example. I think the Minister was a member of the committee at that time. There are several examples of journalists threatened with defamation suits and one that related to one particular gender group. Irish journalists investigating corruption and misconduct were threatened with defamation cases by several very powerful figures. The threats often did not proceed to trial but served as legal intimidation tactics to discourage publication. There is also the case between a well-known politician and media outlets. The politician initiated defamation proceedings against newspaper reporting. The allegation was that the proceedings were initiated purely to silence the media. It is a serious situation if we can introduce litigation purely to silence comment or what we believe is unfair comment. From that point of view, I am happy the Minister said in his presentation that if a defamation case was taken against me, for example, that was only designed to shut me up for a period of time-----