Sir, – Ronan Brady (June 26th) questions my position on legislating to "clean up" existing media ownership. He is entitled to his view that a retrospective law could easily be passed. However I think he is mistaken, for the reasons I outlined at the DCU seminar to which he refers.
For clarity, it is not a question of my being “averse” to such a course of action, but rather that I believe it would be fraught with constitutional risk.
Mr Brady mentions the 2004 nursing home charges legislation. But he seems to be unaware of the fact that the retrospective nature of those charges led to the Supreme Court striking down the relevant provisions as repugnant to the Constitution.
The reference to "labyrinthine commercial issues" was not introduced by me, but by the editor of The Irish Times, with whom I was sharing the platform. The Irish Times report on the DCU event inaccurately attributed these words to me, whereas I was actually responding to Kevin O'Sullivan when I stated that the problem with introducing retrospective legislation was not the existence of "labyrinthine commercial issues," but rather the significant constitutional obstacles that exist.
All of that said, it should be noted that the legislation concerned was enacted by the Oireachtas almost a year ago. At that time, very little was said about whether the legislation could or should be retrospective. My role was to introduce guidelines for the operation of the legislation, which I have now done. – Yours, etc,
ALEX WHITE TD
Minister for
Communications,
Energy and Natural
Resources,
Adelaide Road,
Dublin 2.