In a Seanad debate on 10 May 2000, I said:

We should be embarrassed by our lack of libel legislation.

Our libel laws are based on the 1961 Act, which I understand is almost a copy of the UK Act of 1952. The Minister said he is willing to espouse many of the proposals made by the Law Reform Commission in 1991, when Justice Keane put forward, to the best of my knowledge, 59 different proposals. That was 1991; what have we been doing?

Foot-dragging is a mild term to use for what has happened. Those proposals were made by the Law Reform Commission in 1991, which was the last century. We are now in the 21st century and we have done nothing about this. I know efforts were made in 1994 and 1996, but the Minister has been in power for almost three years and this cannot wait any longer. Foot-dragging is not too strong a word for this.

The Government published its latest legislative programme yesterday and the promised defamation Bill is No. 65 out of 66 on the C list, which is the list of Bills whose heads have not yet been passed by the Government and which have not, therefore, reached the bottom of the queue for drafting. Publication of the defamation Bill is not expected, on the Government's admission, before the end of the year.

If that is not foot-dragging, it certainly shows a lack of urgency or political will to bring the matter forward. That lack of urgency is a test of the sincerity in much of the rhetoric we are hearing about rebuilding confidence in the political process. A key to rebuilding that public confidence is to be as open and transparent as we can. We should be looking for ways to open up the political process and remove barriers to transparency that remain.

At present the burden is on the political process to prove itself to the people. Given the revelations now coming thick and fast, the public is right to be suspicious about any attempt to hold back information of any kind. The public is entitled to see reluctance to update the laws of libel and defamation as a last ditch effort to hold onto a culture of secrecy. I do not believe the Minister is doing that, but that is the image that will be given if we drag our feet any longer. There are 66 Bills proposed and this is No. 65 on the list. It is clearly not high on the Minister's list of priorities. The events of the past few weeks mean it should be not just high on the list of priorities but at the very top.

I tie the libel and defamation issue to the political process because it is closely tied to political matters. Most of the people who sue in Ireland are politicians. Again and again we hear how journalists and newspapers have been gagged by the threat of libel laws, either through direct threats from those affected or by advice from the media's legal advisers. We are told that some of the revelations now being made at the Flood Tribunal could have been in the public domain a lot earlier had it not been for the threat, actual or feared, of libel actions.

This is not to say the media always get things right or that there is no need for balancing the public's right to know with a person's right to his or her reputation. There will always be grey areas here. There will always be grounds for dispute. However, we have tilted the playing field too far in favour of keeping things secret and too little in favour of disclosure. We have changed laws. We have a Freedom of Information Act, which has helped a great deal in one regard, but we have not even taken the first tentative steps. We are still relying on a 1961 Act which is based, almost word for word, on the British Act of 1952.

Neither is it true that those in the media have always given the best example in regard to dealing fairly with the people they use in their copy. In dealing with people's privacy the media is showing less and less respect for the rights and the feelings of individuals. The media is being governed increasingly by what sells newspapers. I think in particular of the growing practice of intruding on people's private grief about which there does not appear to be any rules or, more importantly, any restrictions.

Although these considerations are important in themselves and deserve to be examined for their own merits, they should not be used as red herrings to divert attention from the central issue. The central issue is that we have archaic laws that have to be changed. The Minister recognises that. In 1991, the Law Reform Commission recommended 59 changes in this area, yet the Minister has placed this issue at number 65 on a list of 66 actions that have to be taken. Clearly, they will not be taken this year.

I was not aware of the proposals that were made by Mr. Justice Keane in 1991 until I undertook an investigation.  I was not aware of the question of an apology. Years ago, if somebody fell in one of our supermarkets I would immediately go to the hospital to visit the person and see how they were. I was told I should not have done that because it is almost an admission of liability, but I did not care. It appears that occurs in law here. One cannot apologise without it being taken as an admission of liability. The Minister touched on that and he said he is willing to espouse it. Let us do something about that because many of these problems could be solved with an apology - it is not necessarily a question of cost - and be kept out of the courts.

Another aspect is that payments by a defendant cannot be made into court without an admission of liability. It is interesting that this particular aspect was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1933 and abolished in Northern Ireland in 1936. I had not realised they have different laws in regard to that. We should not always copy the British but if the law that we inherited from them was changed back in 1933 and if we are examining it now for the first time in 2000, surely it is time we did something about it.

By internationally recognised standards, and our commitments under international agreements, our laws on libel and defamation are out of date. That alone would be reason enough to change them urgently but we have an even more urgent reason. For as long as we as a nation continue to drag our feet on this issue, we deepen people's cynicism about our sincerity in wishing to make public life more open and transparent and in wishing to be more answerable to the citizenry.

We have to take action now.