Madam, - Vincent Browne's columns of June 25th and July 2nd imply that the law of defamation is a problem principally affecting newspapers and broadcast media. It also has serious - indeed, potentially ruinous - implications for Irish book publishers.
The potential for ruin is real. Most Irish book publishing houses are small businesses. A successful action against a publisher could sink such a company. At best, one action will cost vastly more than the publisher's gross profit on the offending book, even if it has been a best seller.
This creates the chill effect that makes book publishers avoid areas of legitimate public interest, thus diminishing our democracy.
Worse again is the fact that publishers often cannot afford to win many cases, as they will never recover their costs from unsuccessful plaintiffs. This makes the law a charter for vexatious litigants and cynical lawyers.
CLÉ - The Irish Book Publishers' Association - supports the proposals of the working group regarding qualified privilege and lodgment of money in court without admission of liability. We also feel that, where matters of public interest are concerned, the plaintiff should be made to establish negligence and malice on the part of the publisher.
We also believe that a plea of previous publication or dissemination in the public domain, where no action was initiated by the plaintiff, should be a good defence. Trivial errors, such as one word astray in a text of 150,000 words, are subject to the same sanctions as a flagrant and serial defamation. There should be a graduated scale of charges and penalties.
Money should not be the only remedy. A prompt public apology should be possible in appropriate circumstances. An apology should not automatically be regarded as an admission of liability. In the case of unintentional defamation, an apology should be a sufficient remedy at law.
Even when books are published, costs are inflated by the requirement to have texts closely scrutinised in advance by lawyers. Libel insurance is unobtainable in Ireland, such is the appetite for litigation and the frivolity with which the courts reward plaintiffs. Printers, booksellers and distributors can be joined to a defamation action. In practice this means that publishers have to indemnify them against loss, thus increasing the risks still further.
CLÉ does not advocate a free-for-all where people's privacy and good name can be abused. Rather, we seek a greater equilibrium in the law between these considerations and the ability of all media to operate in a manner appropriate to an open democracy.
The establishment of the current working party, to which CLÉ has already made one submission and is preparing another, at least holds out the hope that the political will is there at last to carry through the necessary reforms.
Otherwise, it is just a matter of time before an Irish book publisher is put out of business by a defamation action. Is that what people want? - Yours, etc.,
FERGAL TOBIN, President, CLÉ/ Irish Book Publishers' Association, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.