Government urged to change defamation laws

An international newspaper body has expressed its “dismay” at Ireland’s defamation laws and called on the Government to amend them.

The group pointed out that damage payouts in Irish defamation cases were up to 10 times higher than in other jurisdictions.

These high costs threaten the existence of local and national papers, said the board of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in New York.