The legal implications of a newspaper publishing an apology is a "catch-22 situation" and must be changed, according to the author of a new book on libel law.
Mr Damian McHugh, a former Irish Press journalist and a barrister, said a newspaper cannot currently publish an apology without admitting liability.
Legislation says if a newspaper, or broadcaster, publishes an apology, this may be used in evidence to reduce the amount of damages awarded.
However, if an apology is published, "guilt is admitted at a very early stage, and the only question remaining is the amount of damages that the plaintiff should recover", writes Mr McHugh in Libel Law: A Journalist's Handbook. This, he says, is the catch-22 situation.
The book, published by Four Courts Press, is a second edition of a version published more than 10 years ago, when it was originally intended as a "stopgap" before what was believed to be the imminent reform of the Defamation Act, 1961.
This reform has not yet occurred.
In the meantime, the "culture of libel litigation has grown enormously ... so also has the size of awards", says Mr McHugh.
Mr McHugh, who is a lecturer in media law and journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology, says the recent proposals by Fine Gael on reform of the libel laws were "a step in the right direction".
One area of the party's proposals which he would endorse is the issuing of guidelines by judges to a jury about the amount of damages which should be paid. This point was also made in a Law Reform Commission report on libel law in the late 1980s.
The foreword to the new edition, which is aimed at working journalists and students, is written by Mr Justice Peter Kelly, of the High Court.
"When one considers the enormous power to damage a reputation contained in the journalist's pen, it can scarcely be denied that such power must be exercised in circumstances when an effective remedy is available to those who may be unjustly wronged," writes Mr Justice Kelly.