Senators have urged the Government to ensure that a new Press Council is strong enough to protect the public from irresponsible and inaccurate journalism.
In a wide-ranging debate on privacy and defamation, Senator Maurice Hayes (Independent), said it was crucial that the Press Council envisaged by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, would be independent of Government.
Mr Hayes is a director of Independent Newspapers, although he stressed that he was speaking in a personal capacity.
He expected the media in general not to be anti-Government but to be critical of it.
In a debate which heard criticism of many news organisations, he said the selection of the first members of the council and the manner of their appointment would be important.
"There may be technical difficulties in ensuring that these people emerge in such a way that is credible and transparent without having some form of appointing procedure," he said.
"It is important to all concerned that the first appointees are outstanding people with unimpeachable integrity, so that people believe that the council does mean something."
Mr James Bannon of Fine Gael said it was up to Mr McDowell to ensure that the proposed Press Council had a "full set of molars" and was not a toothless dog.
Another Fine Gael senator, Ms Sheila Terry, criticised a column in The Irish Times on lone parents last Tuesday by Kevin Myers. "Such articles affect parents and children and they place a slur on them. As far as I am concerned, this type of journalism is unacceptable," she said.
Senator David Norris (Independent) said he had no wish to comment on that article by Kevin Myers, but criticised him and writers such as Mark Steyn and John Waters for using their columns in The Irish Times to respond to his letters in the Letters to the Editor section.
He said it was not too much to ask columnists to "demean themselves to join the hoi-polloi in the letters page" rather than using the added weight of their columns.
Mr Norris said he had been "blackguarded" by Ireland on Sunday, which had quoted selectively from an interview he did with the paper on sexuality, the age of consent and paedophilia.
"I was given the entire front page of the newspaper which featured a photograph that made me look like a raging sex maniac. All kinds of distortions appeared. I was not expecting it."
Mr John Dardis (Progressive Democrat) criticised the Sunday Independent, stating that there was an increasing tendency to portray opinions as facts.
Senator Brendan Ryan (Labour) also criticised the Sunday Independent and said he was glad Mr McDowell had made it clear he was not interested in a statutory Press Council. While he was sceptical about self-regulation, self-regulation with a vigorous input from outside the profession was a very fine thing.
Senator Jim Walsh (Fianna Fáil) said the Press Council mooted by the Government should be able to deal with complaints in the same way as the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, and it could avoid people having to go to court.
