One of the disadvantages of being a small party is that it is not possible to follow every piece of legislation. However, I did speak against this Bill earlier. I am taking time to speak against it again because it strikes at the heart of a basic principle of justice, which is the right of people to have serious matters that impinge on them judged by a jury of their peers. That is a fundamental basic principle of law. To undermine it, without any real explanation or justification, is extremely worrying. That is what is happening here. People do not follow these things, which is understandable. They may seem quite technical to them. Deputy Kelly referred to Judge Bernard Barton. I thank the Deputy for briefing me to some degree on this and for highlighting why it is such a problem. The fact that anyone who is seriously concerned with the administration of justice, including the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, those who represent the legal profession and even the Minister, when he was in opposition - which I did not know – have opposed this kind of says it all. Now, however, it is going to be pushed through. I would be curious to know if the Minister has any justification for this. Think about it. For those who might be watching these proceedings, what we are discussing here relates to someone who is defamed and who takes a case because their good name and reputation is being taken from them. In such circumstances, a person's right to have a case on whether their good name and reputation has been taken heard by a jury of their will be decided by one individual, namely a judge. If we are talking about somebody’s good name and reputation, then who better to judge that than a group of their peers – 12 of their peers rather than just one individual – because they are surely in a far better position to assess whether someone's reputation and good name have been damaged and whether what has been done in that regard was fair or not? Surely a jury of one's peers is the ideal group to assess whether that is the case rather than a judge who, even if they are the best judge in the world, is just one individual who inevitably only represents a particular section of society. I do not think Bernard Barton would disagree with me when I say that even the best judges cannot be said to represent the broad spectrum of society. The chances that a jury might do that are far greater. That is the whole point of juries. They are supposed to represent a broad spectrum of society. Judges, even the best of them, cannot do that. So why is the Government doing what is proposed here? A claim was put forward to the effect that this has to do with disproportionate awards that were being given out. That has already been dealt with, because the changes made since the Supreme Court's decision in 2022-----

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-----mean that some guidance has being given in that area. In any event, I just do not see how replacing juries in the context of making these decisions, even when it comes to the awards people might get if their good name and reputation have been taken, with a single individual, namely a judge, can be a good thing. The only plausible explanation - it would be interesting to know if this is the case - is that those who own the big media outlets want what is being proposed. Let us be honest, sensational comments about people that may veer into the area of being defamatory or slanderous sell newspapers. They can go further when it comes to the algorithms used by certain social media outlets for that matter. It is not that I want to infringe on free speech – I genuinely do not – but somebody does have to judge whether a line has been crossed and whether something is completely wrong, unfair, baseless, slanderous, defamatory and has taken away someone’s good name and character. Given the choice between an individual judge and a representative body of one's peers, I know which I think is fairer. This is elementary in the justice system. That is true about other things as well, including serious criminal matters. Is it just that the Government is dancing to the tune of the owners of the media outlets and flying in the face of what should really be an elementary legal principle of the justice system? It seems that is what the Minister is doing. I want to flag that I believe this is fundamentally wrong and that we will be voting against it. I am curious to hear why the Minister’s volte face happened and how the Government is going to justify it.

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