Press Releases

It is my pleasure to welcome you to this special occasion to mark the commencement during the past week of the full operation of the Press Council and Office of Press Ombudsman.

What we are witnessing here today is something which is part of a world-wide development but which has also, and very properly, a uniquely Irish dimension. In recent years it has increasingly been recognized that the press needed to balance its claims to be the Fourth Estate with actions designed to show that it, too, accepts proper measures of accountability. At a crude level, of course, there has always been accountability in the sense that newspaper reading is not compulsory, and that, particularly in an era when media choices have become so widespread and varied, inadequate newspapers will suffer commercially and may ultimately expire. But this is an over-simplified view. There are issues of standards, of accountability and of journalistic behavior that are not amenable to simple or individual consumer choices.

Members of the Press Council, Press Ombudsman, Ladies and Gentlemen,

New independent regulator to resolve press complaints and maintain high journalistic standards

I am grateful to the NUJ for affording me this opportunity to address you. It is entirely coincidental that one of the major controversies of the past few weeks has been about the media and about coverage by the media of criminal proceedings - a topic I will turn to shortly - but it is probably also true to say that there is, generally, a heightened consciousness of the role of the media in society today, and a greater willingness to explore issues of media coverage in a reflective and positive manner.

Prof. John Horgan confirmed as Ireland’s first Press OmbudsmanThe newly-established Press Council of Ireland has announced that Professor John Horgan, a prominent author and academic whose background is in journalism and politics, has been appointed as Ireland’s inaugural Press Ombudsman.

After an extensive period of dialogue and consultation, the members of the inaugural Press Council of Ireland were announced today.

26 January 2007