Mr Maurice Manning (FG) said he agreed with newspaper proprietors that judges should be able to give financial award guidelines to juries trying defamation cases.
Mr Manning was opening a debate on his party's motion calling on the Government to indicate how it proposed to change the laws of libel and defamation and outline its policy on the ownership and control of the media.
Many of the points made by the National Newspapers of Ireland were well made, he said. For a start, there should be a speeding-up of the overall libel process. It was unacceptable that an individual might have to wait for years from the date of publication before a court appearance.
Mr Manning said he agreed with the NNI that in defamation cases judges should be able to give financial guidelines to juries when deciding on awards. If that happened, then perhaps some of the very large awards of recent years might not have been made, though he felt there was no guarantee this would actually be the case.
It was wrong that defendants in defamation actions could not even make a lodgement in court without an admission of liability. That was archaic and unfair.
Mr Manning said that in the case of a genuine mistake where an apology was offered, that should not be viewed as an admission of liability. There were apologies and apologies and if allegations were made on page one in large capitals, then the apology should have equal prominence.
There was also a need, which was supported by the NNI, for the establishment of either a commissioner or an ombudsman within the industry itself, who could sort out complaints speedily, fairly and at low cost. However, this was something on which the newspapers themselves had dragged their feet. They said this would come about only with a proper reform of the libel laws.