Seanad report:Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell undertook to examine whether there could be some modification of the Defamation Bill provision enabling the Supreme Court to substitute amounts in respect of High Court damages awards.
However, Mr McDowell said he did not accept the general proposition that at some stage the Supreme Court was capable of saying an award was excessive, but it was utterly incapable of saying what would be an appropriate award and doing something about it.
David Norris (Ind) complained that as it stood the provision was an attempt to second-guess juries. "If people wish to deliver salutary judgments and punitive damages and, having been told this is inappropriate they double it, the message could not be clearer." The Supreme Court, the establishment and certainly the newspapers might not wish to hear that message, "but it's a very clear message delivered by the Irish people to unresponsive institutions. By enacting this section, we will be making these institutions less responsive."
Maurice Cummins (FG) said it seemed that an attempt was being made to curb the powers of juries, because they were not being given credit for making a rational decision on the basis of the evidence put before them. The Supreme Court was being given the right to over-ride juries.
Mr McDowell said the decisions of juries must be given some weight, but these verdicts must also be reasonable. If the Supreme Court decided that a jury had acted unreasonably, sending a matter back for further trial could be very onerous for some people. He thought that in such circumstances many people would go into the library and shoot themselves.
He would look at the section again to see if there should be a precondition concerning the consent of the parties or of the party appealing the costs issue.
On a separate and unsuccessful attempt by the Labour Party to amend the Bill, Mr McDowell said that if all members of the Oireachtas were to be visited with every letter that had been sent out in their names, there would be very few of them in the Seanad.
He was responding to an amendment that persons carrying out secretarial duties should have a defence to the tort of defamation, where publication occurred in the course of performance of duties.
Mr McDowell said that if a defamatory letter was sent to a senator and was opened by his or her secretary, no one would dream of suing the secretary for publishing the defamation. It would be better not to define the category of innocent parties in defamation.
Mr Cummins said: "I suppose that would include ministers and ministers of state sending out letters, that they would blame their secretaries for sending out letters without them knowing."
Mr McDowell replied: "If all the members of the Oireachtas were to be visited with all the letters that have gone out with their names on the bottom of them, and the consequences, there would be very few people in this House."
The singing of God Save the Queen at next Saturday's Ireland-England rugby international would give offence to people of a certain view, particularly in relation to the terrorist activity perpetrated in the stadium almost 87 years ago, Labhrás Ó Murchú (FF) said. Wouldn't it be wonderful if sensitivity and tolerance now extended to the point that when the British came here as good visitors, they would recognise Irish sensitivities and not decide to sing their anthem?
Brian Hayes (FG), leader in the House, responded: "They came here in the '70s when no one else would come; when the Scottish and the Welsh would not come." John Dardis (PD), deputy Government leader in the House, said it was important to remember that protocol and courtesy dictated that the appropriate anthems were sung.
Mary White (FF) said she thought Mr Ó Murchú should be free to give his opinion.