Rónán Mullen
National University of Ireland · Independent · Ireland
“The fun side of her personality certainly came out during her participation in "Strictly Come Dancing". I think she had the humility to see that even if on occasions she could be seen as cutting a slightly absurd figure, she used that to generate affection and attention for the points of view she held a deep conviction for.”
“I also welcome our French dignitary and say, Vive la France ce soir et vive le Chemin de St. Jacques en France, I would say, à titre personnel. I do not think I was the only one in this House who was very shocked and upset by the news of the murder of Ann Widdecombe last Friday.”
“This Bill, I think, is the opportunity for the Government to recognise that it is not just extreme or violent pornography that is the problem.”
“Teresa's in Clarendon Street at 12.45 p.m. It is time for us all to reflect on the risks people in public life face, not just during their parliamentary careers but afterwards as well. Let us hope for a more secure and safer society for us all where people can express their ideas in a forthright and honest way and not be harmed for that.”
“He is so worried about adult privacy rights that he is not willing to commit to what is needed to protect children from being able to access pornography now. There is one thing the Minister of State did not say. He said that there is already existing online safety regulation restricting access to pornography, but is it working?”
“I acknowledge the work done by Coimisiún na Meán as the regulator in the online space. With all it has on, its role requiring parental controls, reporting, flagging and complaint mechanisms is important. It is undoubtedly attempting to fulfil its remit in demanding age assurance mechanisms of online platforms.”
The complete record
Every one of 391 lines we hold for Rónán Mullen, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 8.
“Níl spriocanna intomhaiste curtha le chéile d'fhás na Gaelscolaíochta agus níl aon dea-chleachtas curtha le chéile maidir le scoileanna a aistriú Béarla go Gaelscoileanna nó Gaelcholáistí, mar atá le feiscint anois le Gaelcholáiste Synge. Maidir le teagasc na Gaeilge, ní mór grúpa saineolach a chur ar bun sa Roinn oideachais a dhéanfadh ailíniú ar an gcóras oideachais le leibhéil inniúlachta teanga mar atá sa fhráma tagartha comónta Eorpach, FTCE. Tá an chéad timthriall, a mhaireann seacht mbliana, críochnaithe ag formhór na bpleananna teanga sna limistéir phleanála teanga Ghaeltachta. Níl aon chinnteacht ann maidir le todhchaí, fís, feidhm agus uaillmhian na bpleananna seo.”
“Gealladh ar dtús treoirlínte sa réimse seo in 2021 agus tá an easpa gnímh seo ag cruthú go leor fadhbanna. Bíonn cúrsaí airgid i gcónaí lárnach. Cé go n-aithnítear an maoiniú breise a tugadh don Ghaeilge agus don Ghaeltacht sa cháinaisnéis a d’fhoilsíodh an bhliain seo chaite, ní hé sin ach 51% den mhéid a bhí á lorg ag pobal na Gaeilge agus Gaeltachta. Is féidir an easpa infheistíochta stairiúla sa réimse seo a aithint ó bunaíodh an Stát. Agus Aire sinsearach againn anois, is iontach an deis é chun maoiniú cothrom a chur ar fáil don earnáil, na ceanneagraíochtaí Gaeilge agus Foras na Gaeilge. Tá cúrsaí oideachais fíorthábhachtach, agus labhair an tAire féin fúthu. Tá cruachás mór sa chóras oideachais faoi láthair mar a bhaineann le húsáid, múineadh agus foghlaim na Gaeilge. Tá córas na ndíolúintí imithe as smacht. Ní féidir é a shéanadh.”
“Is gá maoiniú cuí agus cumhachtaí a thabhairt d'Údarás na Gaeltachta chun talamh agus maoin a cheannach ar mhaithe le tithíocht a chur ar fáil do chainteoirí Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht. Tuigim go bhfuil €650,000 measta chun rannóg thithíochta a chur ar bun san údarás le comhoibriú leis na comhairlí contae, Uisce Éireann agus araile. Is gá go mbeidh an Bille um chíos gearrthéarmach agus turasóireachta, 2025 láidir le cinntiú nach mbeidh an stoc tithíochta sna ceantair Ghaeltachta ann ar mhaithe le brabús amháin ar Airbnb agus Booking.com. Caithfidh sé a bheith ar leas na bpobal teanga arbh as an nGaeltacht dóibh agus le hinmharthanacht na Gaeilge. Ba chóir don Aire tithíochta, an Teachta Browne, gníomhú láithreach chun an ráiteas náisiúnta pleanála don Ghaeltacht a fhoilsiú.”
“Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire agus guím gach rath air. Is duine cumasach é a bhfuil ardmheas agam air as an gcaoi a ndéanann sé a chuid oibre. Tréaslaím le mo chomhghleacaí agus cara, an Seanadóir Seán Kyne, as an dea-obair a rinne sé. Guím gach rath air agus é ag dul timpeall na Gaillimhe Thiar ag stocaireacht, idir Gaeilge agus Béarla. Go n-éirí go geal leis. Tréaslaím leis na heagraíochtaí éagsúla a ghríosaíonn chun oibre muid ar son leas na tíre, na Gaeilge agus lucht labhartha na Gaeilge. Déanfaidh mé tagairt do roinnt rudaí atá á rá ag Conradh na Gaeilge, agus gabhaim buíochas leis as ucht na tacaíochta a thugann sé dúinn mar pholaiteoirí. Ar an gcéad dul síos, mar is eol don Aire, is gá dul i ngleic leis an ngéarchéim tithíochta sa Ghaeltacht le cinntiú go mairfidh sí sna blianta romhainn.”
“We must ask whether there is a need for more long-term people on the ground, meeting all sides and making sure that whatever the policy differences there might be at government level, there is relationship building, particularly with those who might have the ear of the President. We see our Government working to strengthen relationships with the Chinese Government. I hope our Government will not forget the plight of that very brave man, Jimmy Lai. It was distressing to hear the glee on the side of the Hong Kong authorities at the terrible sentence that has been handed down to him. We are in delicate and deep waters. We all need to take an interest and consider the question of whether we have the model right for our diplomatic engagement with the US at the moment.”
“In that context, I note with interest and concern the comments by John Deasy, former TD and Government envoy to Congress on the undocumented Irish. He seemed to be saying, quite frankly, that he does not believe that enough has been done to build and deepen relationships on all sides of the political divide in the United States. I do not know whether that is true. I thought the response of the former ambassador this morning was quite defensive. However, these are always fair questions to be tried. We need to ask whether our model of diplomatic engagement is fit for purpose in the very challenging environment that the US now presents.”
“The now five-month detention of Irishman Seamus Culleton in a Texan United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, facility will have come as a bucket of cold water to people who thought it was only people with criminal records who would be the targets of ICE. The fact that his situation is already being considered in a US courtroom makes clear that his detention is not an aberration. It is an expression of the new tough application of what were, in fact, long-standing rules. It seems that if there is to be a solution it will have to be a political one. There is no one better than the Cathaoirleach to raise Mr. Culleton's plight with his extensive contacts in the US. I have been reaching out to whatever contacts I have. I have begun doing that and would encourage colleagues to do likewise.”
“Of course, there is plenty more to be done on pornography, which I have spoken about before and will return to again. I note all of the good work that has been done, but we need to be much more courageous and determined about protecting children in the online space.”
“Parents then discover late in the day that the same devices that their children use for supposedly educational purposes in school are the same devices they are able to navigate around into distracting activities when they are at home. The reality is that we need to make life a lot easier for parents and families by being courageous enough to say clearly what is needed and to legislate so the principals in schools are able to say, "Sorry, no phones whatsoever in school. Don't not blame us. It is now the law". That that is why the Ministers to date have been far too timid. They need to follow the example of other countries and say that we are going to legislate and not wait for Europe to legislate to ban those aged under 16 from social media.”
“Regarding the CyberSafeKids guide to parenting and all of the things parents are expected to do, many parents do not have the time or the resources or, frankly, the ability to guide their children, in particular their young children, safely through this very complex online world. We need to listen to people like Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist. For anyone who is interested, there was an excellent interview with him on BBC 4 last Thursday. It is very clear from listening to him and others that we need to work towards a screen-free world for young children. The idea that every child should have a computer screen in class is, we now know, a bad one because they get distracted and go to other places.”
“Reference is made to socialising, learning or developing creative skills. This type of talk sounds to me like what the big tech people from Meta and TikTok had to say to the Joint Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport. Of course there are benefits of a kind to be found, but these benefits are to be found elsewhere. Surely the big story that CyberSafeKids needs to share with us is that the risks can now be seen to far outweigh the benefits. The big story is that we need to get children offline. The big big story is one which it will not dare say but which is the truth.”
“I note what Senator Rabbitte and others had to say about Internet safety day. I want to welcome and endorse everything the Senator said. I listened to Alex Cooney of CyberSafeKids this morning who pointed out that more than half of children have no restriction on their online activity and 90% of eight to 12-year-olds are active online. I looked up the CyberSafeKids guide to parental controls. Of course it is good as far as it goes. CyberSafeKids and organisations like it are independent of big tech. However, I wonder at their timidity and the timidity of many guardians of the public good who appear not to be willing to say what needs to be said about young people and their online world. The guide talks about the risks but then points out the benefits for children of social media and the online world.”
“Is it not time for Government-led measures to make sure there is accountability when such direct misleading of people takes place and to make sure it does not happen again?”
“Unsurprisingly, the fact-checking section of The Journal , which was involved in the original counter-disinformation strategy group, could not find time in the last few weeks to seek to fact-check the offending guide. There has not been a peep from any Government representatives despite this misuse of public money. In conclusion, the sad experience of the last referendums and the most recent ones is being repeated, namely, that disinformation can never be admitted when it comes from those on the inside track. Of course it is the taxpayer who foots the bill for this information. Why should the taxpayer be required to fund political advocacy dressed up falsely as truth? Why should we stand for that?”
“It seems that the ICCL, which was a member of the original strategy group, was itself guilty of disinformation in that it sought to intentionally mislead people about the scope of their rights and, indeed, about the scope of their obligations. Has the ICCL apologised? Not at all. Laughably, the council clarified by saying it never claimed that such schools were under an absolute legal obligation. I do not know if it is a mental reservation but it sounds more like direct disinformation. It is the equivalent of Father Ted saying that the money was only resting in his account. IHREC has not apologised. The guide has not been changed. The guide is on the public record, funded by the public, and not corrected. None of the four NGOs involved in the guide's production have sought to distance themselves from the contents.”
“At best, the guide that was produced is really a particular group of people using public money and pushing their own interpretation of Irish law as though their claims have been tested in the courts. Ironically, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties was part of the initial national counter-disinformation strategy group established by the Government. The ICCL had a representative on the strategy group and IHREC currently has a representative on the strategy group. That strategy defines disinformation as "false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm".”
“We have come a long way in this country in tackling cruelty to animals but, sad to say, it seems we still have a journey to go. I spoke recently about how an NGO, namely the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, which in 2024 received about 96% of its funding from abroad, published a widely promoted know-your-rights guide on trans rights. It emerged that a major claim in its guide, regarding schools' obligation to use preferred pronouns, was transparently false. Indeed, its guidance on accessing toilets and changing facilities was also potentially misleading. I noted that the guide was funded by an €18,500 grant from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, which is a totally State-funded independent human rights and equality body.”
“The absence of a direct recognition of the importance of promptness and the duty of a presenter - with a producer making an intervention via that presenter's earpiece - to have a sense of duty of fairness in a particular moment is a serious omission from this otherwise very reasonable departure in law.”
“We know what it did to a presidential aspirant somewhat more than a decade ago. What can be said in a live broadcast situation can have serious consequences for a person's life. I am not saying that the Minister is not putting in any requirements in respect of broadcasters, clearly he is doing so, and the phrase "reasonable and prudent precautions" is used in this regard. It seems, however, that he is leaving out one of the most essential features. It could be argued, in the context of the wording of my amendment, that the requirement that a particular action take place once a defamatory comment has been made cannot really be described as a precaution because, to some degree, it is after the fact. I am of the view, however, that if there was a will, there would be a way to overlook that flaw in my drafting.”
“He is going a great distance in order to protect live broadcasts. Fair enough, they have their public value; but so also does a person's right to their good name. What I am urging upon the Minister - unsuccessfully, because he is the person with the votes behind him - that it should not be a fault of my amendment that it is specific. It is universally valid to say that if something potentially defamatory is said, the presenter of a programme should immediately intervene. That is fairness 101. There is nothing about promptness in the text of the section, and I think that is a real flaw. It is one thing to give comfort in respect of live broadcasts - and, fair enough, I am all for that - but I think we are forgetting just how serious it is when an allegation is made in a live context.”
“I thank the Minister for his reply. Promptness matters and sequence matters. Again, as I explained, there is no mention of promptness in paragraph (e). The phrase "overall management" could be interpreted as almost allowing a broadcaster to give some kind of a nod to the question of the right of the person to their good name. However, the urgency of the problem is in no way addressed in the section as it stands. While I appreciate the Minister saying that he cannot always be thinking of the person against whom a defamatory statement might be made - and I hope I have not inaccurately paraphrased what he just said - and that he wants to give some comfort to those who produce live broadcasts, I get that, my proposed amendment does not negative the live broadcast defence. What I am saying is that I believe he has got the balance wrong.”
“The purpose of what I am seeking to achieve in the public interest is to put the issue of defamation into the public mind in order that it is not seen to be some kind of closed issue that must be true because it has just been stated on television but, rather, that it be seen as something which is contentious.”
“Only that gives the person against whom an accusation is made the kind of equality of arms they deserve. In the context of a live broadcast, a presenter has an enormous responsibility to seek to ensure fair play. They are not acting in loco parentis , but they are the person with responsibility in that moment in the context of the right of a person not to be defamed. That is why I proposed this amendment, which requires that a court must consider whether prompt action was taken to make the necessary challenge and to give the opportunity, if the person is present, to falsify the statement immediately.”
“Therefore, that is why I am proposing that what would have to be considered before such a defence could succeed would, among the reasonable and prudent precautions, be that where a statement was made which a reasonable or prudent person would conclude was capable of being defamatory, that prompt steps were taken to challenge the statement, to alert viewers or listeners to the problem of possible defamation, the right of the subject to defend his or her good name and to initiate an action ,where appropriate, against the publisher of defamatory material, and, where the person the subject of the statement, or his or her representative, was actually present, to give the person or the representative an immediate opportunity to challenge the published statement.”
“If something potentially defamatory is said about somebody, it is vital for fairness that there is an immediate intervention. The presenter of the programme may not be in a position to say, "That is false. You can't say that. Everybody listen up. That is not true." I get that. They are not in a position to prove or disprove what has just been said. However, they are in a position to operate on the presumption that it is not true or on the understanding that there is a reasonable possibility that it is not true. If that is the mindset from which they are operating, then they would act immediately. That would be the reasonable approach to expect.”
“I said something and somebody jumped in and said something very critical of what I had just said. The audience clapped which is not a nice experience. I remember in that moment acting instinctively by grabbing the elbow of the person beside me and saying to them sotto voce, "Please, let me in here." Maybe because of the pain they were feeling on their elbow they stopped, and I was in again with my comment, which did not entirely ameliorate the situation. However, the point was that I was still on my feet and seen to be on my feet as it were. If the discussion had moved on and I only got in three or four minutes later, it would have been a very different kind of impression that was left with the public. In live broadcasting, time matters and sequence matters.”
“There are all sorts of other measures that will inform the court's determination about whether reasonable and prudent precautions were taken, including the effective control over the relevant person or the level of it was reasonable to expect, the nature of the live programme, whether the person was a contributor or the overall measures employed by the broadcaster to ensure the taking of reasonable and prudent precautions and the extent to which the broadcaster carries out an appropriate risk assessment. That all strikes me as RTÉ guidelines kind of stuff. If I am the subject of a defamatory comment or statement, what I want to happen in that moment is immediate and prompt action. The promptness of action must surely be a factor that would need to be considered. I remember being in a difficult TV debate once.”
“The same sense of justice to a person who is, first of all not present, or may be present but is not controlling the debate and discussion, is not achieved simply in the subclause 2(e) that is currently there at line 40 onwards of page 11, where it talks about "the overall management in practice of the live programme concerned, and of its participants, by the broadcaster and in particular by the presenter". What does "overall management" mean? Does it mean that at some point in the course of the programme that they say something conciliatory or cautionary? That would have to be determined by the courts as to whether whatever is meant by "overall management" was satisfactory in all the circumstances.”
“I recall saying to the Minister on Committee Stage a point about putting myself in the position where I am sitting at home watching TV and something is said about me by either an audience member or panellist. I would expect a presenter to have the same concern for my reputation and rights as he or she would have if the statement was made about themselves. That the test we have to apply here. What would the presenter do if something defamatory was said about him or her by somebody on the programme? We know what would happen. They would immediately falsify it. For all intents and purposes, they effectively would take the mic away from that person. There would be consequences.”
“We discussed this on Committee Stage. We are into the section dealing with the proposed live broadcast defence. We can all imagine the scenario where somebody pops up in the audience or maybe somebody on a panel delivers the shocker of the year of a kind that would have any defamation lawyer twitching either in anticipation or any client twitching in terror. We all understand the value of live broadcast. We can understand that there will be television moments that will involve a live audience where the risk is perhaps even greater potentially that something defamatory could be said. The Minister set out the context in which the courts may uphold a defence where something false and otherwise defamatory or a defamatory statement is made during a live programme.”
“I move amendment No. 15: In page 11, after line 42, to insert the following: “(f) whether, any statement having been made which a reasonable or prudent person would conclude was capable of being defamatory, the presenter took prompt steps to— (i) challenge the person making the statement, (ii) alert viewers or listeners to the problem of possible defamation, the right of the subject of the statement to defend his or her good name and to initiate an action where appropriate against the publisher of defamatory material, and (iii) where the person the subject of the statement, or his or her representative, was actually present, to give the person or the representative an immediate opportunity to challenge the published statement.”.”
“Why is the Minister not saying that the court may disregard an omission to take steps to verify the truth? Why is he making it an all-embracing provision and mandating the courts to disregard any omission to take steps to verify an allegation?”
“The mere fact of there being a dispute between parties cannot mean that the court must henceforth disregard any omission to take steps to find out whether something is true or false in its determination of whether a person reasonably believed something was in the public interest. I get what the Minister is saying about prior requirements and the need for publication to be in the public interest. I am not talking about potential disputes in respect of things that are not in the public interest. It could be a dispute about a very serious allegation made by one person against another, not for the purposes of public grandstanding but for the purpose of doing real damage. It may be the person's mistaken belief that what they claim is true but the fact remains that it is a seriously damaging claim arising in the context of a dispute.”
“However, precisely because that concept of public interest is being left to the courts to adjudicate and we are not attempting to define it in legislation, surely we should not be so prescriptive as to say that the courts shall disregard any omission of the defendant to take steps to verify the truth. This is about a dispute between parties. There are all sorts of disputes between parties where it would be essential. I tried to give an example, although it may not have been a very clear one. I can imagine all sorts of situations where there would be a dispute between parties.”
“The Minister wishes to create an exception to address cases, such as that he has described, without requiring a newspaper or broadcaster to contact the Musk organisation or the Trump organisation, or whatever. I would imagine that is not a particularly onerous responsibility but let us assume there are cases where that would not be expected of a proposed publisher. Surely the language here should imply exceptionality. It should state that the court may disregard such omissions. It should be remembered that the Minister has just said that we have to depend on the courts. That is quite right and quite reasonable. We have to leave it to the courts to assess the public interest issue from case to case, according to standards with which we would all sympathise and agree.”
“I say this because it stands to reason that if you are in the business of publishing statements which, if false, will be very damaging to an individual, however unsympathetic the individual may be in the public mind, however famous and well resourced the individual may be and however unreachable by your barbs that individual may be, the fact remains that there is a considerable onus on publishers to take steps as a matter of common sense and on the basis of people's general expectation. If you are leading with an allegation or claim, it must nearly always be the case that you should take steps to verify the truth of what you are saying, if it is capable of being defamatory.”
“If the aim of this subclause is to state that there may be cases where it really is not reasonable to expect a putative publisher to try to find out whether what they are about to publish is true or not - and that it is not necessary for them to do so in order for them to believe that it is in the public interest to take steps to verify whether it is true or not - one would have to say that such circumstances, if they exist, would be exceptional.”
“I appreciate the fact that the Minister met the first test by coming up with some kind of example. One could argue, however, that even President Trump and Elon Musk are entitled to some measure of due diligence on the part of any media organisation proposing to publish something that is false and damaging. If the Minister does not accept that line of argument, I point out to him that he makes an extreme case to defend a clause which does not say that the court may disregard an omission to take steps. Rather, it states that the court shall do so.”
“It could be a student making an allegation against a teacher but doing so in a very public way or where a dispute is known about where there are some kind of disciplinary proceedings going on, in the context of a school, for example, where A has made an allegation against B and where there is some talk about it in the privileged context of a school perhaps having to go through its investigative and disciplinary procedures. What difference does the fact of it being a dispute between two parties as opposed to it being a claim by a whistleblower that somebody had their hand in the till make regarding the fact that it is no longer of any importance whether the defendant has taken steps to find out if what they are proposing to publish is true or false?”
“What chilling effect on good judgment would it have to require that a person will always take steps to verify the truth of something serious that they are about to publish, whether by way of inquiring with the person who is the subject of the potentially defamatory statement or third parties who may be in a position to confirm or contradict what it is proposed to allege? I tried to understand the rationale for this in terms of some kind of a dispute between two public persons, but there is nothing here which indicates that have to be two public persons.”
“We have just heard the Minister speak about the right of a court to draw an inference from the non-co-operation of a person against whom an accusation is being made when that person is contacted by the media. Here we have a situation where, because the publisher can say that this is some kind of dispute - undefined, I think, in the legislation - that somehow it does not matter in terms of the decision about whether it is in the public interest to publish or whether steps were taken to verify the truth of the imputation conveyed. I queried this previously on Committee Stage. What kind of scenario can the Minister present that makes it a matter of no importance whether the defendant in a case, a publisher, has made any effort whatsoever to verify the truth of what they propose to publish?”
“I move amendment No. 12: In page 10, to delete lines 17 to 23. This amendment simply proposes the removal of subsection (3) of the proposed section 26, which proposes that where we are talking about an accurate and impartial account of a dispute to which the plaintiff in the defamation action is a party, the court shall, in determining whether it was reasonable to believe that publishing the statement was in the public interest, disregard any omission of the defendant to take steps to verify the truth of the imputation conveyed by it. We are talking about a decision that has been taken by a publisher that something is in the public interest. We are talking about a false statement having been made and a defamation action taken.”
“For example, I am a person and I have something put to me that I know is false. We are all aware of that old line from whichever university president who said, “Let's make the [b--] deny it.” I refer to an allegation that everyone knows to be false. In the criminal context, a person has the right to silence. There can be good reasons someone does not want to dignify a false allegation and participate in the process of falsifying it. Even to falsify something or state that it is false can, in the view of someone about whom something false is being said, contribute to the possibility of it being published and so on. Where does that concern stand in the light of the Minister’s response to the proposed amendment?”
“I appreciate the comprehensive and fluent nature of the Minister’s response. Everyone here understands that the meaning of something being in the public interest is not the same thing at all as something being of interest to the public. Do we rely on the courts? How can we be sure about the threshold that has to be met for something to be deemed to be in the public interest? We live in times where there is so much said in so many forums about all sorts of issues. Often, disproportionate time and attention are given to issues that are not necessarily that important. What assurances can the Minister give us about how the question of whether something is in the public interest is determined? I wish to go back to the question of whether a person is entitled to withhold comment.”
“It might not cause serious financial loss but it would be deeply unfair and wrong that a person or entity could just go around speaking untruths of a kind, perhaps about the company's financial management practices, industrial relations attitude or the treatment of its staff and so on. It may be a relatively small company that is successful enough to withstand the financial consequences of malicious and adverse false comment, but there would still be damage. There would be damage to the company's identity, its sense of itself, its reputation around town and so on. Can the Minister conceive of circumstances like that, where it might not be serious financial loss but it is wrong? What protection should there be against people who maliciously make false statements about, for example, a small business in the situation I have described?”
“If I may contribute on this point, I understand that many of the claims made for this legislation were that it was addressing strategic lawsuits against public participation. I suppose there is an underlying desire to prevent the ability of companies to take defamation actions to impinge excessively on people's freedom to communicate ideas. However, is serious financial loss the only serious harm one can do to a body corporate that trades for profit? If I was a restaurant owner in Salthill and somebody in a local newspaper or wherever said something malicious and false about the restaurant, it might or might not cause me what is called serious financial loss, depending on how well set up I am as a business. It could hurt the reputation of the business around town.”
“I wish to signal my strong support for this amendment. In particular, I point to the core wisdom in the proposed subsection (3) within the amendment, which is that if a matter is so serious that were it to be prosecuted by the State, the defendant or accused would be entitled to the protection of a trial by jury. That is what a trial by jury is; it is a form of protection. There is a reason why it is there as a right. If something that the State would seek to prosecute merits that level of protection, it seems that it is eminently reasonable that if somebody seeks to defend their good name against a grave accusation made by any party, they are similarly entitled to the protection of a jury trial.”
“Everyone is talking about Enoch Burke - there is a lot to criticise about the way he has gone about what he has done - but let us find out what is the law in this area and what kind of law and policy we want to have guiding schools when it comes to dealing with the problems of children with gender dysphoria and, indeed, the needs of their parents and families.”
“This is a call for honesty from these State-funded and so-called public interest NGOs. It is also a call for a debate so that we can hear from the relevant Minister about what the law says.”
“They are trying to pretend that the law is clear in this area when in fact our courts have not determined meanings around gender in the way they are leading us all to think. At most, occasional equality officers or minor tribunals have made decisions in particular cases that they may be attempting to point to. I am raising today my objection at the dishonesty of these organisations that are cloaking their advocacy in legal language and pretending the laws of this State require schools or other institutions to act in a particular way. Many of these approaches are highly controversial and not evidence based. The law is certainly not clear in this regard. The courts have not pronounced. Legislation around equal status, for example, was passed long before the whole current gender identity debate started.”