#bankinginquiry chair @CiaranLynchTD has told media that confidential documents willbe displayed on screens but media mustn’t report on them
— Elaine Byrne (@ElaineByrne) April 22, 2015
Can he really do that?
Anyone?
(Photocall Ireland)
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Maybe he tabled a bill and had it rushed through both houses of the Oireachtas overnight. You never know.
On the other hand, he’s a Labour TD, so maybe an aide should whisper in his ear on the matter of seprataion of powers.
Is Legal Coffee Drinker around for a chat about this one?
I feel like Labour are bringing in a lot of pretty offensive censorship rules lately.
Politicians speaking off the record is hardly new. It’s arguably an essential protocol of journalism.
Calling it ‘censorship’ is a bit hysterical, even for Broadsheet.
Legal coffee drinker will have to give an opinion before we can be certain, but I’d say that the Chair has no power to restrict reporting in this way.
If a document is confidential, it shouldn’t be displayed. If it is displayed in public (in what is after all a public inquiry in a parliament of what we’re told is a democracy!!), then I can’t see what law is broken if a journalist were to report in the media that he or she saw a document being screened and this document said x, y or z
What’s the difference between a journalist doing this and another member of the public who was in the room telling a friend about what they had seen?
Of course, given the gutless nature of the Irish media no reporting will be done. The U.S. isn’t perfect, but a statement like this would cause outrage.
Our media are shite