AG excused from participating in school’s case over Instagram account post

The Attorney General has been excused from participating in a High Court case by a Limerick school aimed at discovering who was behind a closed down Instagram account which allegedly made derogatory and defamatory remarks about students and teachers.

Mr Justice Garrett Simons said two weeks ago he wanted the Attorney General to be notified about the case, and possibly participate in it, because of his concerns there may be freedom of speech and public interest issues involved.

On Monday, after hearing submissions from counsel for the AG in relation to the constitutional position and the balance of competing rights on those matters, and associated issues, the judge excused the AG from participation in the case, which he then proceeded to fix for hearing in February.

The board of management of the Salesian Secondary College in Limerick is seeking orders against Facebook Ireland, owners of Instagram, aimed at identifying the users of the Instagram account at issue.

The application arose out of posts on an Instagram account which was operational for 10 days in October 2019 before it was closed down.

The board says various images and derogatory comments were posted on it about teachers and children which were inappropriate and some had a sexual context. Gardaí were notified due to the sexual nature of the comments, its counsel said.

The school took steps to find out who was behind it, gained access after obtaining the password from one of the students but was unable to find out who was behind it.

Facebook had said, because of data protection concerns, it would only give out information about account holders on foot of a court order.

Mr Justice Simons said on Monday he wanted to be supplied with a copy of the terms and conditions which apply to Instagram accounts. He said he understood he was being asked to intervene in a contractual relationship (between Instagram and the user) and would need to see the terms and conditions of that contract.

Counsel for Facebook said the material will be supplied to the court.