Gerard P. Craughwell
Labour Panel · Independent · Ireland
“I omitted to formally congratulate the Leader yesterday on his elevation. I assume there will be bonfires all over Tipperary as he arrives home this weekend. I ask him to please forgive me for not officially congratulating him. I will say a few words at the start at our Presidency of the European Union.”
“It sends a confused and troubling message about hierarchy, authority, respect and the place of the Defence Forces within our nation's life. This matters.”
“The decision to have the Secretary General of the Department of Defence, a civil servant, however reputable, take the salute from newly commissioned officers before handing them their commission represents a deeply inappropriate blurring of roles. Let us be clear.”
“I say to the 64th naval cadet class in their achievement that they remain significant, their commitment remains admirable and their future responsibilities remain vital.”
“It is simply unacceptable that not one Minister or Minister of State of the 38 available was present to officiate at the commissioning of new officers into the Naval Service. I remind colleagues that this is not a minor diary clash or an administrative oversight; it is a profound signal of disregard for the State's most loyal servants.”
“It is an honour for me to extend my congratulations to the 64th naval cadet class on their commissioning into the Naval Service. Their commissioning should be a moment of unambiguous pride for them, their families and the State they have chosen to serve.”
The complete record
Every one of 631 lines we hold for Gerard P. Craughwell, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 13.
“We are now looking at the straw man or straw woman who has access to a social media platform and runs a radio-type programme online, with some of them having several thousand listeners. I am just wondering where that leaves us.”
“We are largely talking about RTÉ and Virgin Media. One of the things that concerns me is that there has been a massive growth in podcasts. Some of them are really good and deliver excellent programmes regularly and with good timeslots, etc. On the other hand, some of them are run by what might best be regarded as fringe elements. Where do we stand here? Who is liable in a situation where you are defamed in one of these Internet-style programmes, which are set up in exactly the same way as an RTÉ or Virgin Media programme would be? It appears the Internet service provider is not liable and there seems to be no requirement for the platform on which the podcast takes place to be held to account for anything that happens there.”
“If the Minister is going down the route that everyone will have access to the courts where defamation is concerned, then free legal aid must be put in place for those who cannot afford it. We have a constitutional right to our good name. The Minister cannot say that I, anyone in this establishment or any citizen of the State has access to the courts because access to the courts is the function of the amount of money people have available.”
“Senator McDowell has made the point that before people would even consider going down to the Four Courts, they would have to sit and look at what has been said and have some knowledge of the protocols and procedures within the publishing organisation. They would have to be fairly certain in their own mind that the defamation impacts them before they even approach a member of the legal profession. Once they did that, they would have to be prepared to fund the legal challenge. At the end of the day, if the person against whom they are taking a legal challenge has nothing, and quite of lot of those who decide to spout out in public these days do not have means, while they may get an order retracting the statement, it is going to cost them an extreme amount of money.”
“The Minister adverted to the man of straw who has no means making defamatory statements and everyone having recourse to the courts. Let us be honest about it: people need a lot of money to be able to go to the courts to defend their good name. Not everyone not has access to the courts. The courts may be there and available, but access to the courts is a function of the income and assets people have. A person can be defamed, and we see it every day of the week on social media. We see quasi-defamation. We see it in the national media. We see issues raised under a sort of innuendo but not everyone can run down to the Four Courts. It is an extremely expensive thing to do.”
“It is my experience that most radio stations now delay the broadcast so there is a lag between the time someone speaks and the time listeners hear it. I agree with Senator McDowell with respect to some of the live debate programmes on television. They are set up with people with specific views. The one that bothers me is that we have a growing tradition of protest in this country. Protests start up at the Rotunda and work their way down to Leinster House or Merrion Square. Where a broadcaster is covering that live, it has no idea what is going to be said at any stage. This opens up a whole can of worms because there is no lag. We are getting the protest as it is happening. It is seen as a public service, but where does the liability lie if someone stands up and says something? I am throwing that into the mix for what it is worth.”
“We need to get that clear, once and for all, or stop the speculation in the media. It is either true or false. If it is fake news or false information, we need to call it out for what it is.”
“Who will provide the security? We had a meeting last week with three arms of the Government: the Department of foreign affairs, the Garda and the Department of Defence. We need certainty. I have always been a supporter of eliminating the triple lock, for example. I have always been a supporter of engaging with other defence forces throughout the world - it is good for training - but if there is a change in policy, the Irish people have a right to know that. I believe the time has come for this Chamber to invite in the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence and ask him to lay out the plans there are. If we are asking a NATO state to provide the security that this country needs to host a prestigious event such as the Presidency of the European Union, the citizens of this country have a right to know.”
“In July 2026, we take over the Presidency of the European Union. The media has been rife with speculation in respect of our ability to provide security for the Presidency. The decimation of the Defence Forces is something I have spoken on for 11 years in this Chamber. There are green shoots and hopeful signs in some parts of the Defence Forces. Can we imagine the embarrassment in Ireland if we cannot host a meeting of prime ministers in this country because we do not have the security resources? Is the speculation in the media accurate? Are we turning to NATO to provide security for the Presidency of the European Union? If we are turning to NATO, is that a change in Irish policy? The Government needs to come clean now. It needs to lay out exactly what the plan is with respect to how we manage the Presidency of the European Union.”
“I am deeply sorry for Anne and the family. He was a great man and a great Galwegian. I am so proud that I had a chance to know him. May he rest in peace.”
“As Senator McDowell pointed out a few minutes ago, it is hard to believe that he is not at the end of a phone or that I will not find him sitting in the corner of the Dáil bar. Approximately one year into his role as a Senator, and after I had pointed out how ridiculous it was to appoint a Senator from Chicago, I walked into the bar and he told me, "Craugh", to come over to him. I went over to him and he asked, “What about my attendance now?”. He had a greater attendance in this House than many people who lived in Dublin, let alone anywhere else. He was dedicated 100% to the political position he had been appointed to. He was dedicated to building a relationship with the United States. When you got word of someone in the US in trouble, you could pick up the phone to him and Billy would immediately react.”
“Interestingly enough, when I look at his background in Galway, particularly as an oarsman man with the Tribesmen Rowing Club, he was incredible. The people he mixed with, if you meet them today, will still talk about Billy and the tremendous oarsman he was. His daughter also received a scholarship for rowing, which Billy was extremely proud of. He told me at one stage after he had left the Seanad that he was going back to rowing. I do not know if he did. If he did, I do not know if they had a boat big enough for him to get into because, certainly, he was a tower of a man. I know that Anne misses him. I know how much he meant to her. I know how the two of them got on together. I saw them in Chicago and how kind they were to my wife, Helen. The way we all got on over there was just incredible.”
“He asked me whether I would sign the legislation, to which I said I would be happy to sign it, and I did so. What Anne does not know, however, is that after Covid-19 struck the world, I received an email from a woman in Galway. I am always sorry I did not keep it because she said that she hoped Billy Lawless and I were proud of ourselves for having brought a pandemic on the world and doing away with the ban on drinking on Good Friday. We will take that with us as we go. That was the kind of character he was. He was able to bring sensitive legislation like that into this House and get it passed, both in this House and in the Dáil, to ultimately get it signed by another half-Galwegian, Michael D. Higgins. That is the kind of character he was and that is what he did. That was his way of working.”
“Billy met us at the airport at about 8 a.m. and we did not stop working until 12 o'clock that night. Billy was back in the hotel at 8 o'clock the following morning. It was mass, followed by a meeting with the mayor, followed by a meeting with one of the Kennedys and finally a meeting with the Governor of Illinois. At the end of the day, I was absolutely shattered. He thought that a good thing for us to do then would be to participate in the St. Patrick's Day parade. He walked us through Chicago in the freezing weather. He thought it was a great idea, which it was. It truly was a great idea. Billy approached me at one stage - he approached all of the group - when he wanted to introduce legislation to lift the ban on serving alcohol on Good Friday.”
“I saw Billy walking towards me and thought I had better apologise and get the kick in first. Just as I was about to speak, Billy said, "I know all about you." He sort of put me back in my box. Everything has been said about Billy. He was incredible in the way he could mix with anybody in this House, irrespective of their party allegiance, or with visitors coming into the House. He towered over the place. He was an enormous man. He was a Galwegian, and that side of him came out. I recall how proud he was when he was made a freeman of Galway, how proud he was when the university recognised him and how proud he was, as Senator McDowell said, of his family. Billy invited a number of us to go to Chicago for St. Patrick's Day. We thought this would be a really good gig, going over to live it up in Chicago. It was a great idea, so we went.”
“Senator McDowell said everything that I wanted to say. It is all gone. My speech is finished. Let us go back to the start of my relationship with Billy. he had a relationship with my brother. My brother bought the Twelve Pins Hotel from Billy when Billy was emigrating. My brother knew him very well. In 2016, I spotted a notice that Enda Kenny was about to appoint a guy living in Chicago to the Seanad. Not being one to be shy with Twitter, I put out a tweet about how outrageous this was. What a waste of a seat, bring some Yank over here to fill a seat in the Seanad. Billy pulled into the car park with Anne. They got out of the car and were walking across the car park. That morning, just before I saw Billy, I got a phone call from my brother asking what sort of clown I was. What was I doing? How could I say that about Billy Lawless?”
“The first duty of any country is to protect its citizens. This is the least we can do if there are high street banks that are now reporting profits in the billions of euro. We see PTSB is up for sale at €2.6 billion. Bank of Ireland has returned €1.2 billion and AIB has returned over €900 million in profits this year. Surely these banks can take back on the mortgages of people who are capable of making repayments and allow those families to get some bit of respite. I am asking people now to go back to the banks, get the name of the person they are dealing with if they are refused the mortgage and let us highlight this for full public scrutiny. It is outrageous that people are struggling and banks were telling them two or three years ago what they could and could not buy for groceries.”
“The difference can be as much as €400 a month, or more depending on the size of the mortgage. People should go to their credit union. People should go to a high street bank or a credit union and look for a mortgage when they can show proof that they have been paying their mortgage to a vulture fund for the last number of years while making repayments on their mortgage. If they are refused by the banks, I ask them to contact my office. I will put my email address where they can contact me out on my social media accounts today. It is absolutely outrageous that the banks that we saved in this country at a cost of €64 billion have flogged off a load of mortgages to a shower of vulture funds that are making massive profits on the loans they have taken over. They are making massive profits and it is unfair on the citizens of this country.”
“Yesterday, I spoke on the issue of tracker mortgages and the plight of those who were moved off trackers by the banks before the banks were ultimately forced to do something. I did, as promised yesterday, write to the Garda Commissioner and it has been passed up the line. Enough has been said about that for now. As a result of yesterday, I have had several contacts already this morning on the issue of vulture funds. Vulture funds are charging up to 9% on mortgages when the high street banks are charging about 3%. This is daylight robbery. People who are currently paying a vulture fund and have been for some time should go back to the bank with which they originally took out their mortgage and ask can they replace the vulture fund mortgage with a new mortgage with the bank.”
“I will write to the Garda Commissioner to look for an investigation and I encourage colleagues to do the same. Think of the families and what they suffered while that horrendous act took place. I will ask for that. I thank you for the time, a Chathaoirligh. I did not quite go over the border.”
“To watch couples last night who were screwed out of hundreds and thousands of euro was heartbreaking. One couple had €17,000 repaid to them and another couple got €14,000. The question has to be asked as to how all the banks arrived at the same decision at the same time to deny people the option to return to tracker mortgages after being on a fixed mortgage. It can only spell some sort of collusion between senior bank officials at the very top of the Irish banking industry. We need to ask the Garda Commissioner to investigate this. There is a possible fraud here. I am not saying there is definitely one. I can see the Cathaoirleach and the Clerk ready to jump any minute now-----”
“I too would like to remember Sr. Stan. May her gentle soul rest in peace. As a proud Galwegian, like the Leader, I am sure we both feel that the election of Catherine Connolly was a great thing - a woman born in The Claddagh and reared in Shantalla. Many people who were born in addresses in both of those areas did not have the same opportunity in life. What a great thing it is to see Catherine create a vacancy for the Leader to challenge for a seat in Galway West. Last night I watched the programme on tracker mortgages. I will write to the Garda Commissioner today seeking an investigation into a possible combined fraudulent action by all of the banks in this country. It seems that collusion took place over the tracker mortgage issue to ensure that ordinary citizens of this country who bailed out the banks were defrauded.”
“Particularly when we are talking about young politicians coming in here in their first term - and I have seen some wonderful work by some of the young politicians who were recently elected - to have an impact on them, all you need is for somebody to print a story based on some innuendo that a garda said something. As Senator McDowell said, if this Bill passes, it will be possible to name people. In such instances, journalists will say that they are not disclosing their sources. That is the concern I have. I will leave it at that.”
“I do not read such emails, and I sincerely hope most of the people in this House no longer read them. If I get an email that begins "Dear Member", I just dump it. I do not read them any more. It is interesting that they can be defamatory. I have serious issues with good faith and the public interest. How do I prove or disprove that somebody wrote something in good faith? How do I say that something is not in the public interest? I mentioned an article in the Irish Independent . That was deliberately written to impact the current presidential election campaign. Allegedly, that story originated from the Garda Síochána. Have we reached a situation where a member of An Garda Síochána can decide, "I don't like Michael McDowell. Therefore, I will publish something and make sure he is never elected to the House again."?”
“Maybe I misread what the Minister said. In the context of social media, and I know that is coming later, you contact the likes of Twitter, make a complaint and find that the most outrageous things are not against its rules. The bottom line is that I have no interest in Twitter any more. On the impact that wild statements have on families, yesterday I brought up the issue of migration in this country. Constantly we are hearing, "Oh, they are rapists", or they are this, that or the other. I made the point yesterday that there were 6,683 rapes in ten years in this country. It would be no harm if the Department published the nationality of those who were convicted of rape and maybe put an end of those types of wild stories. The Minister mentioned the flood of emails.”
“She eventually got the case to court and they eventually identified the individual. He was brought to court on criminal charges. When that Senator came to defending her name, the same guy did not have two red cents to rub together. Defamation is for the brave and for anybody who wants to take it on but we should set the bar high for those who publish. The dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean leí type of defence is simply not good enough, in my belief.”
“There are some people who write to me, and because I look at the email address I can see they are writing to everybody in the House, and they are making outrageous claims about Ministers, the President, the European Union and all sorts of things. Is this publishing? Once it is sent to more than one person, it is not an email to me but to the entire Houses of the Oireachtas. Is this regarded as publishing? If it is, what recourse does the President of Ireland or the Commissioner in Europe have against the person? They are fortunate insofar as they can afford to take them on. What is the point of taking on somebody who has nothing? I do not know whether the Minister remembers a Senator here who was subjected to horrendous interference and trolling on the Internet.”
“Why should we have to go to the courts to find out who is making statements about us? People using social media can use any ridiculous name they want but why is it not mandatory that their full details be available in the event of a statement being made? Anybody in the House could then go to the Garda and say the person using this particular handle on social media was making outrageous claims about them and could ask the Garda to go and do something about it. Are we afraid of the social media companies? They are the ones with the money. They are the ones who should be held liable for what is published on their platforms and I do not know why they are not. I know the Minister has sat through quite a lot this afternoon so I will make just one more comment. We all in this House get emails now almost daily.”
“I discussed this at the weekend with some friends and I said it was outrageous that the teacher was not immediately handed a timetable and reinstated on the staff. The answer I got back was to hang on a minute because that school probably had 300 or 400 parents who were concerned, and the concerns of the parents had to be taken into account before the teacher would be reinstated. My uncle had a saying that the sped arrow and the spoken word can never be retrieved. I believe the same applies when it comes to the written word. The Minister rightly points out that we all have recourse to the courts to find out who on social media has just made some outrageous comment about one or other of us in the House or about a member of the public. Not everybody can afford to go to the courts. Going to the courts is not for the faint-hearted.”
“I have heard in this House statements, particularly when we talk about migration issues, that lead to misinterpretation in social media and all sorts of allegations, and we finish up with something like we had last night in Citywest. Again, a statement made here might refer to one or two things and it is taken out of context on social media. Last week, I spoke about a teacher accused of interfering with a child where some years later it turned out there had been no interference with the child. The teacher in question looked for a timetable and the school was somewhat reluctant, based on there being no smoke without fire and there having to be something, even though the investigation showed nothing.”
“Of course, the candidate in question had to make a statement the following day. It is rather sad that is the way it went. Moving on to social media, some of the stuff being said on social media about another candidate in the presidential election is absolutely outrageous. The claims that are being made as factual are absolutely outrageous but those making these claims are anonymous. As Senator McDowell referred to, it is people sitting in their box rooms or wherever publishing blogs they believe to be 100% accurate and 100% true and believing that people have a right to know and that they are saying what they are saying in good faith. Under section 26 of the 2009 Act, you have some cover. It is very little. You have to jump over a number of hurdles before you can go anywhere with the thing.”
“It is a criminal offence and yet we see the term "Garda sources" in the media constantly. In that particular story, three or four Garda sources were quoted without naming any. Of course, if you were to take a criminal case against that particular publication, it would claim journalistic privilege. The journalist would say that he or she is not releasing his or her sources but that he or she got the information from a garda and believes it to be true. That journalist might never have got that information from a garda. The Garda might know nothing about it. That story was printed on that Monday deliberately to impact the election prospects of a candidate in the current presidential election. It has to be a criminal offence to try to influence the outcome of an election by printing a story that had no basis.”
“As the Minister pointed out, there is a criminal case ongoing as the result of a garda leaking information. I believe there is only one such case.”
“The immediate family have to cope with that but then the extended family have to cope with it, followed by the community and that person's employers. It becomes a massive issue because somebody indiscriminately passed on information that should never have got into the public domain. I would be rather shocked if we were to say that it is not defamation to print or publish something that says an individual is under investigation. I will go back to the story I opened with last week, the Irish Independent article about a senior politician being involved in a charitable event. Of course, the politician could not be named for legal reasons but the story had originated with An Garda Síochána. First and foremost, that brings An Garda Síochána into disrepute.”
“I know it has been a long afternoon for the Minister. His remarks that he is willing to have a look to see what changes he might make were promising and encouraging. Senator McDowell referred to the impact on families. In his response a little while ago, the Minister made the point that, where a Garda investigation is taking place into an individual, it is in the public interest for that information to get into the public domain. Is it? Is it really right that, when somebody is being investigated, for whatever reason, that information should go into the public domain? First and foremost, let us think of what happens to the immediate family of the person who is the subject of the allegation. Let us say it is a child abuse issue.”
“Now, for democrats to come in here and advocate for people to spoil their votes is, for me, an affront to the democracy I live in. Everyone in this House knows how difficult it is to go out on the hustings and get votes. To be advocating that we would spoil votes is, for me, anti-democratic and totally and utterly irresponsible.”
“We heard a democrat in this House speaking about spoiling your vote and writing whatever you want on the bottom of the ballot paper, which is the American style of things. Anybody who has been at an election count will tell you nobody is going to read what is written on the bottom of the ballot paper. It either has a one, two or three marked on it or it has nothing. They will all be thrown into the same pile of rubbish and nothing will be achieved by it. People like me were accused of not supporting a candidate. I gave Declan Ganley my assurance that I would support him, because he asked me in plenty of time. He chose not to run, and that is his problem. To say we would not support people, though, is a factual lie. He had to admit on Virgin Media and Newstalk that in fact he had an undertaking from me.”
“I had intended to speak on housing, but I will defer that until 4 November because of two things. First, I congratulate the Garda Commissioner, Justin Kelly, for turning up at Citywest last night and supporting his people on the ground. What we saw was a despicable act of thuggery, the likes of which I thought we would never see in this country again. People were firing rockets at members of the Garda, setting Garda vehicles on fire, etc. In speaking about that, though, I must also speak about what takes place in this House and the other House. Comments made, for whatever purpose, are frequently misused and interpreted on social media to drive the sort of thing we saw last night. Today, we heard about the spoil the vote campaign.”
“Despite thousands of rape reports annually, there is no public breakdown by nationality of perpetrators. Why is this data missing? Who benefits from the silence? Transparency is not optional; it is the foundation of justice. Data drives policy and, without clear statistics on rape incidence by nationality, Ireland risks politicising speculation and public mistrust. Survivors deserve better. Citizens deserve facts. Let us push for reasonable transparency. A total of 6,683 women reported being raped in the past ten years. It is time to have a breakdown by nationality and stop always blaming those who are immigrants to our country.”
“EU integration brought prosperity, but it also brought amnesia. We forget what it felt like to be outsiders, to be judged and to be blamed. Ireland must remember the wind that once blew against us now blows towards us and how we treat others in that wind defines who we are. Chickens do not soar by blaming the wind. Blame does not lift you; it keeps you grounded. Why do some in Ireland seem so quick to chase the wind blowing from Britain and America? Is it loyalty, habit or just the comfort of familiar gusts? Have they not learned by now that real sovereignty is not found in borrowing breezes but in learning to read the sky and fly your own course. The takeaway for today is that if you want to fly, stop blaming the wind and start building wings. We hear today about an assault on a ten-year-old girl.”
“Before Ireland joined the EU, emigration was a defining part of the Irish identity. Over 10 million Irish people, more than the current population of Ireland, have left this island since 1800, driven by famine, poverty and lack of opportunity. Irish emigrants have flooded into Britain, America, Australia and beyond. They were not always welcome. Irish people were once thrown out of pubs, denied jobs and mocked with signs like, "No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs." That particularly applied in Britain. Irish emigrants were stereotyped as violent and lazy. In America they were treated as second-class citizens for decades. Yet today some in Ireland are quick to blame immigrants for housing shortages, job competition or cultural change. It is a bitter irony that a nation built on emigration now turns its back on migration.”
“We also have to get rid of the five-year contract in the Defence Forces. When I joined the Defence Forces it was a job for life. It must become a job for life again. We must have career pathways that allow people to progress to 21 years' service. Having to reapply for your contract every five years is simply not good enough. I am coming to the end of my time. I could speak for an hour on this, as the Taoiseach knows.”
“I am not going to argue. It will be no surprise to the Taoiseach to learn that I am going to speak about defence. I compliment him on what he did as Minister for Defence in the previous Government. The policies he put in place have seen green shoots emerge, nowhere more so than in his constituency in Cork. The Naval Service is turning the corner and I compliment him on that. In the short time I have, I will raise a couple of issues I want the Taoiseach to look at. On the post-2013 pension, the Taoiseach's advisers from the Departments of Finance and public expenditure will tell him it is not an impediment to people staying in the Defence Forces, but it is. It is an impediment for An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces, the fire service and the Prisons Service. We have to go back and look at it.”
“If we go ahead with this, I am afraid we will see during every election campaign innuendo with names attached to it. It will be no longer "sources close to" or "Minister such-and-such" or "Deputy such-and-such"; it will be "source told me that John Murphy was A, B, C and D", and that is John Murphy then having to explain, and we all know in this House and in the Lower House that when you are explaining, you are losing. We have to be extremely careful about that. I ask the Minister to do as I ask. I will not delay him any longer myself; he has had a good airing.”
“It is a horrible place. I plead with the Minister not to proceed with this amendment and to come back with another amendment on Report Stage and let us all work together to get this through and get to where he wants to go with it. As Senator McDowell has said, if this goes through, it will take God knows what to reverse it. I say to the Minister, and he is Minister for justice and we now have a new Garda Commissioner, whom I met recently, a fine policeman with great service to the State, we have to plug the holes and stop journalists attributing to Garda sources stories they publish. I believe our gardaí are above that. If there are one or two bad apples in the Garda, as my colleague Senator Conway said, let us weed them the hell out of the place and stop the constant attack on people in public life.”
“Boeing is not going to go after them. A journalist sitting there now may well say, "Joe Bloggs said", and Joe Bloggs may happen to be a very wealthy man so Boeing might just go after him for the hell of it. Why not? Many times I have sat in company, as I am sure the Minister has, when somebody has stated a fact that is totally untrue and that everybody sitting around the table knows is untrue but the person making the statement is doing so with such conviction that they know it is an absolute fact, but of course it is not a fact. We see it on social media every day of the week. I am delighted I have been Twitter-free for three weeks now. I will never go back to it because it is a horrible cesspit full of people who will say things with impunity, destroy people's lives and cause people to sit up at night worrying over things that are said.”
“I had experience some years ago of a teacher who had been alleged to have carried out a sexual assault on a student. After a period of investigation, the student came forward and said that, actually nothing had happened. They just did not like him. When the teacher sought a timetable to go back into his classroom, he was told they were not really happy about that because there is no smoke without fire. The man had been exonerated but there was no smoke without fire. We have seen a plethora of publications in this country based on innuendo. Imagine what that will change to if this legislation passes. The Minister himself made the comment about the two people in a pub talking. It was in an earlier part of the debate. Senator McDowell was referring to the Boeing aircraft and two people saying they are dangerous aircraft.”
“Who in their right mind would come forward with evidence knowing there is a fear that their name would be released and a fear that the evidence they would provide would be released? That is one problem we have. People often say to those who feel they have been defamed, "Well, you can go to the courts." It is not that easy to go to the courts, and there is risk in every court case you will ever take. As my colleague Michael McDowell has said, there are now only three things you have to satisfy: one, that what you published was in the public interest; two, that you believed it was in the public interest; and, finally, that you published it in good faith. How do I prove, how does the Minister prove or how does any Minister or Senator or county councillor or priest or teacher prove that a journalist did not act in good faith?”
“The Minister's ears are probably being burnt off him at this stage. We have a serious problem, and this amendment will actually make it worse. We have talked about the article in the Irish Independent today. It quotes sources from An Garda Síochána. Why is there not a criminal investigation today into the source that leaked that story to the Irish Independent ? Journalists, without ever naming a politician, can destroy a career in the way they write stories. Claims to have seen files or evidence can be printed without any evidence that it is true. Members of An Garda Síochána who serve this State with honour, and they have done so for over 100 years, advertise frequently, asking people to come forward to confidential lines in order to provide evidence where a crime has been committed.”
“Going in this direction with the Bill means it will be much easier to name the individual. If someone was writing the article in the Irish Independent today, they would actually say the name of the individual because they would be covered under this legislation. I will leave it at that for a moment.”