Michael Mulcahy and the Privacy Bill

Michael McDowell is intending to bring in a new Libel law, in tandem with a new Privacy Bill.

This bill is intended to protect the privacy of famous and/or powerful people. It does not seem that it will protect ordinary people’s privacy against intrusions by powerful people.

Michael Mulcahy, FF backbench TD, was interviewed on RTE’s This Week programme explaining that the media couldn’t be trusted to act in the interests of powerful people’s privacy. In particular, Mulcahy said, Minister Martin Cullen, had suffered greatly from the uncomfortable experience of people talking about him.

I’ll have some direct quotes on this later, after the show is put up on RTE.

For the moment, I’ll just point out that Michael Mulcahy’s father is the publisher of Phoenix Magazine.