Category: Irish Society

The liability of rescuers

| 3 Comments
| Irish Law, Irish Society, Restitution

Courtoons cartoon.The Law Reform Commission last night (pdf) launched its new Report on The Civil Liability of Good Samaritans and Volunteers (pdf), following up on its November 2007 Consultation Paper (pdf) on the issue.

The Common Law does not recognise a duty to attempt a rescue, even where the rescue would be relatively easy, and the Commission recommended against imposing one by statute. However, where a rescuer feels compelled to attempt a rescue, the Commission’s recommendations cover the duty of care owed by rescuers to those being rescued. …

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Cowengate: no use crying over spilt milk

| 6 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, ECHR, Freedom of Expression, Irish Society, Sedition
'Silvio Berlusconi and Mara Carfagna, via New York Times
Silvio Berlusconi and Mara Carfagna, though not by Filippo Panseca

Yesterday’s Times Online has a short piece which begins [with added links]

A scarf is the only thing protecting the modesty of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, in a painting of him and his Minister for Equal Opportunities, Mara Carfagna, 32, a former topless model, as angels. The work by Filippo Panseca is in a show at Savona on the Italian Riviera. Mr Panseca, 69, said that he wanted to pay tribute to the Prime Minister, 72, in the exhibition, which also includes a painting in similar style of Mr Berlusconi’s wife Veronica Lario.

The same story is also covered in The Independent, The Telegraph, and The Daily Mail. The inevitable comparisons with Cowengate were drawn by the Evening Herald, which adds that Panseca said that if

Berlusconi bought the paintings he would donate the money to the earthquake victims of Abruzzo. Mr Berlusconi has yet to comment. But he seems unlikely to buy the pictures: last year, he censored a bare nipple in a copy of a renaissance painting hung in the government press room.

More seriously, though, it seems that 144 people complained to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission about RTÉ’s coverage, 9 about the original report, and 135 about the apology; and Suzy has posted a copy of RTÉs response to the BCC regarding those complaints.…

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Cowengate follow-on: a question, and more pictures at the exhibitions

| 16 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, journalism, Law, Sedition
Emerson, Lake and Palmer performing their 1971 album version of Pictures at an Exhibition

The Cowengate controversy certainly caught the imagination this week; and, by way of update to my earlier posts on the topic, I’ve collected some more links about the affair below. Perusing the coverage in print, broadcast, and online, a question has repeatedly occurred to me: for all that there was online outrage, how much of it was reflected in the print or broadcast media? My impression is that whilst online commentary reflected and often relied upon the print or broadcast media, there was (by and large) very little traffic the other way. Is this a fair assessment? Answers, please, in the comments below.

[The remainder of the post is another compendium of links relating to the Cowengate controversy].…

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Cowengate and Freedom of Expression

| 37 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Journalists' sources, Sedition
No image, to represent the attempt to censor the Cowen caricatures

Suzy must get the prize for popularising the best political coinage of the day, for – so far as I can see – it is she who has run with the name “Cowengate” for the sturm und drang surrounding satirical portraits of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Brian Cowen. In a piece of guerrilla artistry as ingenious as the coinage Suzy has popularised, caricatures of Mr Cowen were anonymously hung on the walls of the National Gallery of Ireland and the Royal Hibernian Academy. Once they were discovered, they were removed, but not before they had garnered sufficient publicity for RTÉ (Raidio Telefís Éireann, the national state broadcaster) to broadcast a story about them on the flagship 9:00pm television news programme.

It has been the occasion for lots of bad puns and some embarrassment on the part of the Taoiseach, the Gallery and the Academy, but in the ordinary course of things, the story should have blown over after about 48hours. However, things then took two turns for the worse. First, RTÉ apologised to Mr Cowen and his family or for any disrespect shown to the office of Taoiseach by their broadcast.…

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Cowengate: Pictures at an exhibition

| 29 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Journalists' sources, Law, Sedition
Ravel‘s orchestration of Mussorgksy‘s Pictures at an Exhibition, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at the BBC Proms in August 2006

This post is an addendum to Cowengate and Freedom of Expression (above). In the original version of that post, I had a paragraph of links to other coverage. Like Topsy, that paragraph growed and growed, so I’ve taken the list of links out of that post and put them here.…

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Is Ireland corrupt?

| 4 Comments
| Irish Society

TI report cover, via their site.Already previewed on this blog, a report today (cover left) from Transparency International (Press Release here) raises the spectre (and not for the first time) of corruption at the heart of Irish political life. In particular, the National Integrity System Country Study. Ireland 2009 says that whilst there is little evidence of grand corruption at present, and the scale of petty corruption is very low, the political culture of personal relationships, patronage, favours, and donations, compounded by a lack of transparency in political funding and lobbying, gives rise to high levels of what the report characterises as “legal corruption”. As Vincent Browne once put it: our political system is built around private gain.

For the future, therefore, the report acknowledges:

Ireland already has a sound legals and institutional framework upon which future progress can be made. For this to happen, existing institutions will have to be adequately resourced, and laws adequately enforced. Just as importantly, a shift in political will and general attitudes
to corruption and abuse of power will be needed.

In particular, the day after a limited form of whistleblower protection came into effect in the health service, the report recommends the introduction of comprehensive whistleblower protection across both the public and the private sectors, the strengthening of Freedom of Information legislation (including the reduction of application fees), and significant strengthening of the rules relating to political funding (including the publication of detailed audited accounts by political parties) and lobbying (including a public register of lobbyists).…

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Ethical reporting of suicide

| 3 Comments
| General, Irish Society, journalism, Press Council

FriendsSpirit Moves is a discussion programme on RTÉ Radio which explores ethical issues that arise from current news events. It is broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sunday evenings at 6:00pm; it is re-broadcast on RTÉ Choice (one of RTÉ’s Digital Radio Stations) on Monday afternoons at 4:00pm; and episodes -including this – are available to stream here. This evening’s programme discussed the ethical and legal issues that arise in the context of reporting suicide. The host was Tom McGurk, and the participants included Colum Kenny, Joan Freeman, Paul Drury, Tom Clonan, and Lisa O’Carroll.

Suicide is a serious and tragic social issue, on which several indefatigable organisations do sterling work. In particular, reporting it has been the subject of a conference (pdf) by the Irish Association of Suicidology, and of a report (pdf) by the National Office of Suicide Prevention. The American Association of Suicidology has developed a set of sensitive guidelines on the reporting of suicide; and Headline (blogged here) is doing something similar in Ireland.

The Press Council has recently published a very interesting Discussion Document (pdf) on the issue. As I’ve previously argued on this blog, the key point is that much of the reason for sensationalist media coverage (that sells papers or delivers audience share) is because we – the general public – buy the papers and listen to or watch the programmes.…

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It could be you?

| No Comments
| Contract, Irish Society

Lotto panel via the Lotto website.Be careful what you wish for. Many of us hope to win the national lottery; but for the members of a Mayo lotto syndicate, winning the €1,577,578 jackpot on 6 January 2001 did not bring the kind of positive changes they would have wished for. Four members collected the winnings; but a fifth man claimed that, although he was in arrears, he was still a member of the syndicate and thus entitled to a one-fifth share of the winnings. The matter was not resolved amicably, and it went to court. …

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