Sharon Keogan: Protecting Journalistic Privilege in the Bill

Thank you and I want to thank my colleague Sarah Riley for putting down this amendment and I want to speak to this grouping because they address a clear and important gap in the Bill as it currently stands. So I want to say at the outset that I do not approach these amendments from a position of hostility to regard their investigations. I fully accept that there will be circumstances where journalistic material is relevant to serious criminal inquiries. What these amendments seek to do is to not block investigations but to ensure that when the State interferes with journalistic material, it does so in a way that is careful, proportionate and consistent with long-established constitutional and European principles. Amendment number 3, which introduces a definition of journalistic privilege, is a modest but necessary starting point. The Bill already contains detailed provisions on legal professional privilege, yet it is largely silent on journalistic privilege. And this is despite the fact that Irish courts and the European courts of human rights have repeatedly recognised the protection of journalistic sources as a cornerstone of any democratic society. If we value freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it certainly makes sense to recognise the explicitly on the face of the legislation. Amendments 30 to 33 then give practical effect to that principle. They do not create an absolute shield for journalists. Instead, they require the application for search warrants involving journalistic material are, as a default, made unnoticed and heard inter-parties unless genuinely exceptional circumstances exist. That strikes me as a reasonable and balanced approach. To put it plainly, searching a journalist's phone, laptop or files is not the same as searching an ordinary premises. Journalists routinely hold unpublished material, communications and information that, if exposed, can have a chilling effect well beyond the individual case. A simple hypothetical illustration at this point, a journalist investigating an alleged wrongdoing by a powerful organisation. Garthy believes some material held by the journalist may be relevant to an offence. Without these amendments, a warrant could be sought and executed without the journalist being heard. By the time the journalist becomes aware of it, confidential sources may already have been exposed. Even if no charges follow, the damage cannot be undone. These amendments introduce an essential pause for judicial scrutiny. Where applications proceed without notice, they require Garthy to explicitly draw the court's attention to constitutional protection, Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, and the requirement of the necessity and proportionality. That does not weaken policing. It strengthens oversight and decision-making. I also think that these amendments sit particularly well in the context of the expanded digital powers elsewhere in the Bill. As we have discussed already, modern devices collapse vast amounts of information into a single place. A journalist's device may contain years of work, multiple investigations and numerous sources entirely unrelated to the matter under inquiry. Without safeguards of this kind, journalistic privilege risks being recognised in theory but eroded in practice. Finally, this is also about public confidence. A free press does not exist for the benefit of journalists alone. It exists for the benefit of the public. If sources believe that speaking to journalists carries an undue risk of exposure through routine policing powers, fewer people will come forward, and matters of genuine public interest may never reach daylight. Supporting these amendments does not create a class of people above the law. It recognises that certain forms of state power, if exercised without sufficient care, can have consequences far beyond the immediate investigation. For those reasons, I will be supporting this group of amendments and believe they strengthen both the Bill and the constitutional value it should reflect.