Member's statement: Defamation Law

Member's statement by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 30 June 2026.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

30 June 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Defamation Law

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5652723

Read the official Assembly record

Text

In the few minutes that I have before the end of term, I would want to be talking about the chaos that has been created by the absence of an Executive Budget and expressing hope that the Executive and the UK Government will finally get on with agreeing a Budget in order to prevent the collapse of more public services in Northern Ireland. It is shameful that we are in that situation, but, since I have only a few minutes, I must talk about an urgent matter that relates to the revelations over the past week involving Jeffrey Donaldson.

There are profound questions to answer for institutions, most particularly for the DUP and for individuals associated with the DUP. We talked about some of them yesterday. We need to understand more from the DUP leader about what the supposedly independent review will mean. However, we need to address a specific context in Northern Ireland, which is our defamation regime.

We learned about the antics of Jeffrey Donaldson that were not criminal — so far — only after his conviction. Reporters have been able to go and find that information and people have been able to speak — felt able to speak — because Mr Donaldson has been sent to prison, convicted of appalling crimes, and is therefore less likely to seek recourse through litigation. Otherwise, people probably would not have spoken and the media probably would have been chilled from reporting on it. That is a crisis throughout public life here. Members of the Chamber have used the defamation regime to shut down debate. Institutions use it to shut down scrutiny. In the past, Jeffrey Donaldson used it to shut down a not-for-profit website, openDemocracy, that was reporting on his shady links to the funding of a wrap-around pro-Brexit ad. He tried to intimidate the people running that website using lawyers. That kind of intimidation happens in Northern Ireland every day, because our defamation regime encourages the chilling of free, democratic debate. It is used not just by the DUP but by Sinn Féin in order to silence debate. I have a real worry that that prevented the reporting of Donaldson's deeply, grotesquely hypocritical behaviour and his other types of behaviour that may have crossed the criminal threshold. We do not know that yet, but we may find out more, because journalists, free from libelling that gentleman because of the predicament that he is in, are now able to report on it properly. The crisis has been going on for years — in fact, decades. People have not properly confronted it, in part because some in the Chamber benefit from the protections that it offers. Others in the Chamber do not and have been subject to defamation actions. Of course there should be protections for people from false and defamatory claims, but, in this region, we have a particular problem. I am writing to the Finance Minister and the Justice Minister, both of whom have a policy interest, to get to the heart of whether our defamation regime prevents reporting on vital matters. I think that it does — in fact, I am sure that it does. One of the many things that has to come from the Donaldson scandal is a proper examination of our libel regime, the ways in which powerful people use it to protect themselves from scrutiny —

— and what that means for public life in Northern Ireland.

573 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:08 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification