For a while everything seemed to be going so well: the Government had introduced Freedom of Information legislation, some TDs were calling for the abolition, or at least severe amendments, to the Official Secrets Act. Politicians spoke of letting in the light on the workings of Government, or operating as if behind a pane of glass.
In Britain free speech campaigners looked to Ireland with envy. Then everything seemed to change.
True, the Freedom of Information Act will come into effect next May, but it does not now seem to promise quite as much as when it was first mooted a few years ago. We have copper-fastened Cabinet confidentiality in a referendum and the politicians now calling for the end of the Official Secrets Act are scarce.
The British government has committed itself to a Freedom of Information Act and to incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into British law. When that takes place Ireland will be the only EU member that has not made the convention part of its domestic law.
The co-chairman of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Mr Michael Farrell, has already written in this newspaper (December 29th, 1997) of the "embarrassing situation where Ireland is out of step with all of its European partners" - a situation, he said, that has not come about through inadvertence or because Ireland had neglected the issue, but because the Government, according to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, had no intention of incorporating the convention into Irish law.
Mr Farrell pointed out the broad human rights issues involved, but there is also a specific area where the judges of the European Court of Human Rights have been active in balancing rights, in the area of freedom of expression, media freedom and free speech.
It is little wonder that Mr Ahern has no intention of bringing the European convention into Irish law, as he said at a recent Council of Europe Summit in Strasbourg.
Successive governments have been unwilling to deal with a whole range of issues relating to a free press and freedom of expression. Despite commitments, successive governments have failed to legislate in the area of journalists' rights to protect sources of confidential information, promised following the unsuccessful attempt to try Susan O'Keeffe for refusing to name sources to the Beef Tribunal, or the defamation laws, which the Law Reform Commission has recommended be reformed. If the convention was brought into Irish law it would bring with it rulings and decisions relating to free expression based on Article 10 of the convention, which states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers."
As Marie McGonagle points out in her standard work, A Text- book on Media Law, this formulation contrasts starkly with that of the Constitution in that freedom of expression is stated "boldly and positively in paragraph one, unencumbered by any mention of restrictions". In contrast, Article 40 of the Constitution has so many exemptions and caveats that most media lawyers consider it almost useless as a guarantor of press freedom.
When the European Court of Human Rights rules that a person's rights under the convention have been flouted, the country against which the action has been taken has to change its laws. In implementing the European Convention of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights is involved in a delicate balance between individual rights, the rights of the State, the rights of freedom of expression and the right to privacy.
However, it first and foremost recognises the role and function of the media in a modern democracy. In a 1995 judgment the court said: "Not only does the press have the task of imparting such information and ideas (i.e. of public interest) the public also has a right to receive them. Were it otherwise, the press would be unable to play its vital role of public watchdog."
The court has ruled favourably in terms of press freedom on a number of important issues, by giving protection to journalists who have refused to divulge anonymous sources, giving journalists access to "discovered" documents in court cases and by ruling that a high libel award granted by a British court was an infringement of one's right to freedom of expression.
The European Convention says in essence that freedom of expression is the rule - the key value - and any limitations on it are the exception.
The English civil liberties lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson QC, in his book, Freedom, the Individual and the Law, says that the decisions taken at Strasbourg are always cautious and conservative. "The convention embodies basic rather than progressive standards, which are interpreted so that they may be applied in practice to countries far less economically and socially advanced than the UK."
It must also be recalled that the court did not rule in favour of the journalists and broadcasters who challenged the Irish Government over Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act in 1991.
This is where any debate about the role of the media should begin.
Ireland is a signatory of the convention and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights will continue to influence our courts. When Barry O'Kelly of the Star newspaper refused to name his sources during a civil trial in the Circuit Court, counsel for the Attorney General admitted that the law in this area had developed since Mr O'Kelly was sent to prison in the early 1970s. Legally the only difference was a ruling by the European Court in a case won a British journalist, Bill Goodwin, in 1995 and an indication that Mr O'Kelly's case would be brought to Europe if the judge tried to send him to prison for refusing to name his sources.
Mr Robertson suggests that the standards demanded by the court are those that should prevail in places such as Russia, Ukraine or Turkey. It is hardly too much to expect our Government to ensure that this country conforms to standards of free expression in line with our European partners before debating press councils.