I recently argued here that, if the High Court in Sinnott v Carlow Nationalist refers the matter to the Supreme Court, that court should take the opportunity to clarify the tort of invasion of privacy in Irish law. It’s a mess that needs sorting. After listening to Prof Gavin Phillipson‘s paper on UK privacy law in the Dublin Legal Workshop last week, it seems to me that UK privacy law is also a mess that needs sorting, and the House of Lords (in its judicial capacity, it is the UK’s highest court) should take a similar opportunity to sort things out there.

I have been musing since Gavin’s presentation on two points which seemed to me to arise from it (that’s Gavin in the photo on the left, btw). …

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The interest in Richard Sinnott’s privates and privacy shows no signs of abating, either online (egs from both ends of the spectrum: Edward McGarr | Twenty Major) or offline (eg, I was on the Breakfast Show on Newstalk106 (podcast feed here) on Wednesday morning discussing this very case). The story so far: the Circuit Court (discussed here) and High Court (discussed here) have already held that the publication by the Carlow Nationalist of a photograph of Mr Sinnott involved in a football match in which his private parts were exposed constituted an invasion of his privacy. However, the High Court proceedings are still ongoing before Mr Justice Budd, and, on Monday, the Nationalist asked Budd J to refer the matter to the Supreme Court. According to newspaper reports on Tuesday (Irish Independent | Irish Times), he adjourned to February 12th next the issue of whether he will refer such issues to the Supreme Court for determination. He should. Although the amount of damages under appeal is relatively small (at only €6,500), the issues of principle involved are of the highest importance.…

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Ryan Tubridy, RTE‘s king of fogey fluff, had an uncharacteristically substantial discussion of privacy this morning (it should be available here in due course; scroll to about 45/50 minutes in). It is almost 15 years since Charles Haughey resigned as Taoiseach (Prime Minister): as the RTE obituary puts it:

In February 1992, former Justice Minister Sean Doherty delivered the coup de grace when he insisted that Haughey had been aware of the telephone tappings of two political journalists ten years previously. ‘Anybody else that says otherwise or tries to abandon him or herself from that situation is not telling the truth,’ said Doherty.

Not even the great survivor could weather such a damning disclosure, and Haughey was duly forced to resign as Taoiseach.

The tapping had led to a leading case on privacy: Kennedy v Ireland [1987] IR 587, [1988] ILRM 472 (12 January 1987) (doc | pdf); and to the enactment of the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act, 1993 (see also ss98 and 110 of the Postal and Telecommunications Act, 1983).*

This morning’s discussion on Tubridy featured Kevin Rafter, Political Editor of the Sunday Tribune, and blogger, dealing with the politics of Doherty’s revalations and Haughey’s resignation, and Donncha O’Connell, Dean of the Faculty of Law, UCG, dealing with the right to privacy.…

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With apologies for ending the title with a preposition, it poses a question which has been on my mind since I wrote here last week about the case in which a gaelic footballer from Carlow is suing his local newspaper, the Carlow Nationalist, for invasion of privacy. They had published photographs of him playing a gaelic match, in one of which his private parts were exposed. In my earlier post, I argued that, whilst this humiliated him, it did not invade his privacy. Yesterday, the High Court disagreed. According to an article in today’s Irish Times:

Mr Justice Declan Budd said yesterday he proposed to award damages to Richard Sinnott on the basis of his finding that there was a negligent intrusion on the player’s right to privacy arising from the publication of the photograph in which his private parts were accidentally exposed on the sportsfield.

Either the High Court is wrong, or I am.…

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My Monday evening viewing has, for many years, often included Questions and Answers on RTE1, but this is the first time I’ve blogged one of the episodes (which should appear here soon). Among the guests were Ger Colleran, Editor of the Irish Daily Star, and Andrea Martin, solicitor and consultant on media law. So I assumed that there would be a privacy question related to the case to which I referred in a previous post.

I wasn’t disappointed. …

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It had to happen. After lots of dancing around the subject, a court finally has to face a submission that there is no common law cause of action for invasion of privacy at Irish law. Mary Carolan reports in today’s Irish Times that, in a case currently before Mr Justice Budd in the High Court, the Carlow Nationalist is appealing against an award of €6,500 to Richard Sinnott in the Circuit Court in Carlow last June. The Nationalist published photographs of him playing in a gaelic football match. Although in the ordinary run of things, this would be entirely unexceptionable, Mr Sinnott took exception this time because, in one of the photographs, his private parts were exposed.

The Circuit Court held that this infringed Mr Sinnott’s right to privacy. The Nationalist is appealing. On this ground at least, they should succeed. …

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