The public will not get new privacy rights, though new privacy law is being prepared, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
Michael McDowell and Fianna Fáil Ministers did clash last year about his plans to ease the State's draconian defamation laws, but the row has long since been put to one side.
He had intended to bring about changes last year to the 1861 Defamation Act, including the formation of a press council, until his gallop was quickly brought to a halt by Fianna Fáil Ministers, suspicious of the press. Conceding ground, Mr McDowell proposed that he would move on defamation first and then on privacy, but that was not acceptable either so, instead, he did what Ministers always do to buy time. He commissioned a report.
Stung by media intrusion into the personal lives of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Martin Cullen and others, Fianna Fáil Ministers made it clear that they would not accept libel changes without greater privacy protections.
Though far from being universally popular, Cullen's treatment at the hands of Ireland on Sunday stunned many Leinster House colleagues, who feared their families would be subject to similar treatment.
The privacy report, led by senior counsel Brian Murray, examined the changing trends on the issue, including changes spurred by the increasing dominance of British-owned tabloids in the State's newspaper market. Undoubtedly, the newspaper trade has changed in recent years.
The coverage by the Sunday Independent, in particular, and copycat reporting by the Sunday Tribune and the Star of former Fianna Fáil TD, Liam Lawlor's death changed everything - and not just for politicians.
Many of the public were equally shocked.
The Sunday Independent launched a report into its own coverage of the Moscow accident, though that report has never emerged into the light and few believe that it ever will.
The Murray committee proposed a number of changes that could be made to legislation to clearly illustrate the privacy rights already enjoyed by citizens from European laws and under the Irish Constitution.
Ideally, the Minister would have liked to publish his defamation legislation first and then act later to turn the Murray report into law, but he accepted that there was no point pushing the matter.
The Cabinet has now decided that the recommendations included in the Murray report should be turned into the heads of a Bill - the main points - in two, or three weeks.
The timetable is not without ambition, since drafting such a piece of legislation - even in its abbreviated form - may prove no easy task for parliamentary draughtsmen. Though some observers suspect a major rift between the Minister and Fianna Fáil Ministers, the reality is more prosaic, since both sides are agreed on the destination.
Though some in Fianna Fáil might believe that extra privacy rights are on the way, that is not the case, since the legislation to come will bring greater clarity to rights already in existence under the European Court of Human Rights and the Irish Constitution.
Though they exist, the public is entirely unaware of them. A better-informed public, backed by a clearly-written piece of Irish law - could yet occasionally put manners on misbehaving journalists, and, perhaps, in the future prevent the publication of something that would have been better unpublished.
In 2004, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of Princess Caroline of Monaco, who had claimed that paparazzi photographers had breached her privacy even though they took pictures of her in a public place.
The ruling has encouraged well-known people throughout Europe to take a stronger line over the publication of their images when they are not attending public functions, or seeking public attention.
In her claim, the princess said three German publications had breached her rights by taking photographs of her skiing, shopping, leaving a restaurant or simply out walking. Ruling in her favour, the court said the photographs were of the private life of the princess and she was entitled to the protection of the Convention on Human Rights.
The issue was not about press freedom, the court believed, since the photographs had nothing to do with the dissemination of ideas, but were nothing more than "very personal or even intimate" images.