THE FOCUS of the Privacy Bill is not “all about possible violations of privacy by the media and nothing else”, according to Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.
“This simply is not so. The Bill deals with a range of situations where the privacy of the person might be violated and not involve the media at all. Many of the complaints my department receives involve actions by individual citizens against each other.”
The Minister was speaking in the Dáil as he wound up the second stage debate on the Defamation Bill which modernises the law in this area.
Mr Ahern said that “in view of the fact that the issue of privacy may affect individual members of the public, my department will continue to take account of developments in this area of the law from reports and elsewhere and views expressed by interested parties and the public on the details of that Privacy Bill. We will consider any drafting suggestions and amendments in that regard.”
Fine Gael had called on the Minister to clarify the “limbo” status of the Privacy Bill, on the Order Bill. Mr Ahern said “the Privacy Bill creates no new law. Rather it puts a statutory framework on the existing constitutional right to privacy and it has regard to the rights provided by the European convention on human rights.”
The Privacy Bill “seeks to inhabit the space between data protection acts on the one hand and the necessary and appropriate provisions in regard to security and crime issues on the other”. He said the Privacy Provision in the press council’s code of practice “will help if its members are willing to subscribe to the standards set down there to prevent excesses by the media.”
He said the press council should establish its own practices and procedures and the Oireachtas should not be prescriptive in relation to how they should set down their operating procedures. He was referring to the decision by former Labour Court chairman John Horgan to resign from the Press Council for its decision not to publish minority opinions in its judgments. Mr Ahern said “there is no threat to investigative journalism that rightly seeks to hold Government, institutions of the State, business and other organisations up to scrutiny. Rather it is the opposite.”
The Government needed to keep under review all developments in the law relating to defamation and privacy. “We must be mindful of the constitutional right to one’s good name and must ensure that mechanisms for protecting and vindicating citizens’ rights are effective.” The Bill now goes to the committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women’s Rights.
