Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation Bill 2026: Second Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29 ============================================================ Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West I welcome this SLAPP Bill. Legislation on this issue is long overdue. I have been in the ear of a number of Ministers for justice for at least five or six years, looking for legislation in relation to this. I am glad the European Commission saw fit to begin infringement proceedings against Ireland last May for its failure to transpose the 2024 anti-SLAPP directive into Irish law. SLAPP is among the worst forms of abuse anybody can suffer. It is not confined to defamation; it comes in many guises. I have seen trumped-up trespass cases, trumped-up pollution claims and so on. In addition to abusive litigation, I have seen victims subjected to other forms of abuse, such as malicious reports to a myriad of regulatory bodies with the intention of tying that person up in knots. I have seen first hand the distress caused to victims of SLAPP and their families. I have seen people receive nasty seven-day solicitor's letters on Christmas Eve and at other sensitive times of the year, such as Easter and the summer holidays. What is particularly egregious is misuse of the discovery mechanisms of the State. I have seen solicitors misuse these to terrorise victims and keep dragging them back before the courts by disrupting everything they try to do to comply with discovery orders. A very worrying issue is the way the cost orders are racked up against vulnerable defendants. I have seen solicitors try to have defence of SLAPP struck out on various technicalities. Bad as it is to be subject to vexatious litigation, to seek to strike out defence of such litigations is a shocking form of abuse. I welcome the section of the Bill that deals with forum shopping. It has been suggested by some that one could just ignore SLAPP. This is not possible as failure to file a defence allows an applicant to take out a judgment in default of defence. SLAPP-type litigation requires the victim to field a team of lawyers. This does not come cheap. Litigation typically gets drawn out with loads of court appearances, all the time clocking up a serious legal bill for the victim. The courts are already struggling to cope with the heavy caseload they deal with; to add vexatious litigation to it is unacceptable. Having examined the Bill, I wish to raise a couple of concerns, which mean we will table a number of short amendments on the next Stage. The need for defendants to demonstrate a case is "manifestly unfounded" is an unduly high threshold that would preclude many SLAPPs from being subject to an early dismissal mechanism. We recognise the threshold was established by the EU anti-SLAPP directive but as the Bill has already gone beyond the minimum standards set out by the directive with respect to its inclusion of domestic cases, there is no reason this flawed threshold should be enacted. The "manifestly unfounded" test is far too high. The legislation should instead allow for abusive lawsuits to be subject to the dismissal mechanism in order to ensure the right to freedom of expression is duly protected. A letter was written to the Minister for justice in February 2025 about this flawed text regarding the Defamation Act. Nevertheless, we are still seeing that within the system. This is hugely concerning. A defendant does not have cost protection in such proceedings. As such, a high bar will discourage victims from referring instances of egregious SLAPP-type cases. We will propose to substitute "abusive" for all mentions of "manifestly unfounded". I am particularly concerned that the Bill is silent on those who enable litigation in certain situations, that is, solicitors and lawyers. The enablement of SLAPP is a major difficulty. There are numerous cases of abusive processes, such as serving seven-day solicitor's letters on Christmas Eve; hamming up vexatious cases; misuse of the discovery mechanism, which has been used as an instrument of persecution by enabling lawyers to harass and intimidate; and making false statements in court and knowingly misleading the court. There are scores of ethical provisions which are ignored by enablers. I have seen one person bring these to the attention of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority, LSRA, and it was completely ignored. Ethical provisions are actually part of the Law Society. A solicitor "Has an overriding duty to the court to ensure, in the public interest, that the proper and efficient administration of justice is achieved, and should assist the court in the administration of justice, and should not deceive, or knowingly or recklessly, mislead the court." That is not always put into place. There are similar provisions for barristers: "A Barrister shall not knowingly make, procure or countenance the making of any false or misleading statement of fact, whether express or implied [or] written... with regard to any matter in which that Barrister is engaged, to any Court, other body or to any other party or any representative thereof." That is not always put into place either. It is worth noting the comments by Mr. Justice Seamus Noonan in the Court of Appeal judgment in Keating v. Mulligan, 2022. He described the litigation misconduct of the defendant, stating that his lawyers engaged in gratuitous and sustained impugning of the integrity of the plaintiff, which had to be deprecated in the strongest terms. The High Court had determined that the defendant had improperly accused the plaintiff and her lawyers of fraud and awarded aggravated damages in addition to general damages. The allegations were completely improper and need to be resolved----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-29