FINE Gael has committed to enacting the Defamation Bill within the first 100 days of Government.
The Bill will make significant changes to defamation law including abolishing juries in High Court defamation action.
During the general election campaign, Fine Gael candidate Jerry Buttimer, who successfully won a Dáil seat in Cork South Central, said his party would enact the bill if returned to office.
Deputy Buttimer was speaking after claiming Sinn Féin’s plans to review coverage of RTÉ amounted to political interference in the independence and editorial process of the public service broadcaster. He said this would represent a blow to the protection of the rights of journalists, and would be ‘a clear breach of political independence from our national broadcaster’. ‘Tellingly, the Sinn Féin manifesto also fails to include a single mention of defamation,’ he said.
