Press must exercise freedom responsibly

TP O’MAHONY’S article in response to the €900,000 libel award to Martin McDonagh against the Sunday World is self-serving and disingenuous. (‘Freezing free speech’, March 1).

It is indicative of the widening gulf between the high esteem in which the press holds itself and how it is seen by the ordinary man and woman in the street.

Mr O’Mahony argues that large libel awards will result in journalists not pursuing stories to their limits for fear of being sued — to the detriment of free speech.