Press freedom - Who would privacy laws protect?

LAST week we had a glimpse of what is possible when powerful interests move to control the public agenda.

Gardaí were sent to a radio station to demand access to email and phone records. The director of our State broadcasting corporation, which we imagine independent, apologised to Government for a piece of banal satire. A thing of nothing became an international farce because someone tried clumsily to silence dissent.

In this context it is disappointing that Justice Minister Dermot Ahern used the publication of the first annual report of the Press Council and Press Ombudsman to raise again the prospect of legislation purportedly designed to protect privacy.

Does anyone think we’d know about Seán FitzPatrick’s hundred-million-plus loans or Michael Fingleton’s €1 million bonus or his €28m pension fund if they had privacy legislation at their disposal? Does anyone think we’d know about how child protection issues were dealt with in Cloyne? How residents were treated in Leas Cross nursing home or that Galway’s water supply was poisoned with cryptosporidium? Not a chance.

Of course everyone is entitled to privacy and unwarranted intrusions must be punished.

That however, is not a convincing argument for legislation little more than a permanent gagging order to be invoked when it suits those in a position to hide behind the secrecy it might afford them. It is not possible in a country where the rich and powerful have made a mockery of tax and banking regulations to accept that privacy legislation would not be equally misused.

The core of the Mr Ahern’s argument is rendered redundant by the almost uncontrollable influence of online media. After all internet allegations cannot be controlled unless, like China, whole sections of the net are closed down. Do we want that?

It took many years to get a Press Council in place and the indications are that it is a great success. Part of the process of the establishment of the council was a commitment to a new Defamation Bill. It is time now, as he again promised yesterday, for Mr Ahern to steer that through the Oireachtas but without any get-out-of-jail cards masquerading as privacy legislation.