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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT of ORAL EVIDENCE to Be Published As HC 819-Ii UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 819-ii HOUSE OF COMMONS ORAL EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT COMMITTEE REGULATION OF THE PRESS TUESDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2013 PROFESSOR JOHN HORGAN and DÁITHÍ O'CEALLAIGH PROFESSOR BRIAN CATHCART, HUGH TOMLINSON QC, JACQUI HAMES and BARONESS HOLLINS Evidence heard in Public Questions 127 - 233 USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT 1. This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others. 2. Any public use of, or reference to, the contents should make clear that neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings. 3. Members who receive this for the purpose of correcting questions addressed by them to witnesses are asked to send corrections to the Committee Assistant. 4. Prospective witnesses may receive this in preparation for any written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee. 1 Oral Evidence Taken before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday 5 February 2013 Members present: Mr John Whittingdale (Chair) Mr Ben Bradshaw Tracey Crouch Philip Davies Paul Farrelly Mr John Leech Steve Rotheram Jim Sheridan Mr Gerry Sutcliffe ________________ Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Professor John Horgan, Press Ombudsman of Ireland, and Mr Dáithí O'Ceallaigh, Chairman, Irish Press Council, gave evidence. [This evidence was taken by video conference.] Q127 Chair: We are going to begin the session and be broadcasting. Thank you very much for joining us this morning and, please, if you could introduce yourselves, that would be most helpful. Mr O'Ceallaigh: I am Dáithí O’Ceallaigh and I am the Chair of the Press Council. Professor Horgan: I am John Horgan. I am the Press Ombudsman. I am independent, but I do report to the Press Council. Q128 Chair: Thank you. As you will be aware, there has been some discussion in the UK, on the back of Lord Justice Leveson’s report, about the Irish model and whether or not it could be applied here. I think it would help us if you could perhaps just begin by giving a brief outline and saying how you think it differs from what we have had in the past and the advantages that it might bring if we were to follow your example. Mr O'Ceallaigh: Perhaps I might begin by saying something about the manner in which the operation here was established about five and a half years ago. There have been various attempts over the last 20 years to introduce some form of complaints handling or regulation of the press, and it really did not get under way until a little bit after 2002 when the industry itself established a steering committee. There were three people in particular on that steering committee that were very important. They acted in a way as a link between the industry and the Government, in particular the Minister for Justice and the Department of Justice. The chair of that steering committee was Tom Mitchell, who was the former Provost of Trinity College and who afterwards became the first chair of the Press Council. Secondly, there was a facilitator, who was Dr Maurice Hayes. He had been an ombudsman in Northern Ireland and he was on the board of Independent Newspapers, which was the largest of the media groups here in Ireland. From the very beginning the NUJ were involved as well on that steering committee. The steering committee, that is the industry itself 2 in effect, drew up a code of practice and agreed to the establishment of an independent system that would regulate that code of practice. It includes an Ombudsman and a person in the Ombudsman’s Office who handles complaints and tries to resolve complaints before they go to the Ombudsman. Then after the Ombudsman has made his decision, if that decision is appealed by either side, either by the complainant or by the newspaper, then it comes to the Press Council. In a way, the Press Council is like a court of appeal. That is the origins. The system itself is quite a simple system, it is not a complicated system, and it has a face that is widely known to the public, who is the Press Ombudsman. Q129 Chair: You have seen the recommendations of Lord Justice Leveson as to the kind of system he wants to establish here. He obviously looked very carefully at your model, but do you see any particular differences between the way you operate and the kind of system he is proposing? Mr O'Ceallaigh: I think one particular virtue of the Irish system is its relative simplicity. There is a code that has been drawn up voluntarily by the industry and then the application of that code is made by the Press Ombudsman’s Office and the Press Ombudsman in the first instance, so it is quite simple. If there is an appeal it comes to the council and there is no appeal from the council. Professor Horgan: I rather think that there is quite a difference in the origin of the two systems, in that our system is one that arose voluntarily, by and large, whereas the system recommended by Lord Justice Leveson came as a result of a crisis in the industry, of which the phone hacking was the most prominent part, so there are different points of departure that may have led to slight differences in the outcomes. Q130 Chair: You say that yours was established voluntarily. Has it commanded 100% support from the newspaper industry? Mr O'Ceallaigh: Not 100%, no. All of the main nationals, be they Irish-owned or be they Irish editions of British-owned ones, are all members. Most of the magazines in the country, though not all of the magazines in the country, are members. Most of the local newspapers in Ireland—and the local newspapers in Ireland are weeklies whereas the British- owned are dailies—are members, but not all, and the freesheets are not members either. You could say probably 90% to 95% of the print media in the country are members, but not all. Q131 Chair: As I understand it, you are also covering at least some online publications? Mr O'Ceallaigh: We cover one at the moment, but we have had an application from probably the biggest online publisher in the country. We have established criteria for membership of online publications, and that particular application from that particular outlet is at a very advanced stage at the moment. Professor Horgan: It is fair to say that both in the Act under which we were recognised and in our articles of association, the digital future is envisaged in very concrete terms. That would seem to us to be a natural way for us to go and, indeed, increasingly I suspect digital news publishers will want the kite mark that would attach to their membership of our council. Chair: I am going to bring in some of my colleagues. Q132 Mr Bradshaw: I do not know whether you can see me. But in your judgment, how well does your system work and what has changed since before its existence in terms of newspaper behaviour? 3 Professor Horgan: Our system structure has a very strong objective, and that is to help the newspapers to realise what the public concerns are about the way that they go about their business, and to help the public to realise some of the pressures and forces that drive journalism. This is a long and fairly slow process, but I think that one of the results of the last couple of years of our existence has been to increase the trust that should always exist between the press and the public and to remove unnecessary points of friction. Also, I think a very obvious result has been that within the press, where the traditional attitude to handling complaints was brusque at best and often not very facilitatory, there has been the development of a fairly sophisticated internal complaints handling system, which means that a lot of the complaints that in the early years of our existence would have come to us, because people did not get any satisfaction from the newspapers, are now being handled satisfactorily to the complainants within the newspapers themselves. It is a long process but one that is enhanced by a sense of ownership of the project and the structures, both by the public and by the media themselves. Q133 Mr Bradshaw: You have some kind of statutory recognition, but you do not have the power to force or require a large newspaper group to belong to your system. How would you address the problem that we had in this country with our current system where a major newspaper group simply walked away from the voluntary system? Professor Horgan: Under the Act of constitution, it is impossible to compel anybody to be a member and, interestingly enough, that is a constitution that since 1937 has formally embodied the right to freedom of speech. Be that as it may, one of the incentives that helps to keep the present members as members, and which may in time encourage others to join, is that if you are a publication and you are sued for defamation, you are allowed to give evidence to the court of your membership of the council, your observance of the code of practice and so on.
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