8.30AM REGISTRATION

9.00AM WELCOME BY INDEX ON CENSORSHIP

9.15AM KEYNOTE SPEECH FROM MINISTER HELEN MCENTEE

Speech from the Minister of Justice

Speaker

Helen McEntee

Helen McEntee is an Irish Fine Gael politician. A Teachta Dála for the Meath East constituency since 2013, she has been Minister for Justice since June 2020, having previously served as a minister of state from 2016 to 2020.

9.30AM - 10.45am PANEL 1

Silenced survivors: Legal letters and the law

Alice-Mary Higgins

Alice-Mary Higgins is a progressive, independent Senator with a strong commitment to equality, the environment and human rights. Senator Higgins was re-elected to Seanad Éireann (NUI Panel) in March 2020 where she is leader of the Civil Engagement Group, a group of Senators who each have backgrounds in civil society.

Senator Higgins is a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Environment and Climate Action, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and the Seanad Select Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments.Prior to her election, Alice-Mary was Policy Coordinator at the National Women's Council of Ireland, having previously held policy and advocacy roles in Older and Bolder, Comhlámh and Trócaire. Alice-Mary also worked with a number of EU civil society networks and played an active role in many public campaigns and referenda.

Alice-Mary graduated from UCD in 1996 with a degree in English and Philosophy. She holds an MPhil in Theatre and Cultural Studies (TCD) and an MA from the New School for Social Research in New York.  Alice-Mary is a Fulbright Scholar in the Humanities.

Kayleigh Payne

Kayleigh Payne is a chronic illness and disability advocate. She is also an advocate for victims of sexual violence and abuse.

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Mark Tighe

Mark Tighe joined the Sunday Independent in June 2022, having previously worked for the Sunday Times for 16 years. As well as covering legal affairs, he specialises in investigative reporting. He was named News Reporter of the Year at the NewsBrands Ireland Journalism Awards in 2018 and 2019. He is the co-author of Champagne Football, the best selling Irish published book of 2020 and the winner of the Irish Sports Book of the Year in 2020.

Kei Yoshida

Dr Kei Yoshida is an international human rights lawyer and qualified barrister in England and Wales and the Republic of Ireland. They are a senior legal advisor at the Center for Reproductive Rights, and an associate tenant at Doughty Street Chambers. Kei is the co-author of Silenced Women (Octopus, 2023) with Jen Robinson.

Jessica Ní Mhainín

Jessica Ní Mhainín is Policy and Campaigns Manager at Index on Censorship. Since joining Index in 2019, she has led projects relating to media, artistic, academic, and digital freedom - including on strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). She has been involved in the Coalition against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) since its inception and co-founded the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition in 2021. Prior to taking up her role at Index, Jessica worked at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva and at Front Line Defenders in Dublin.

11.15AM - 12.30am PANEL 2

Environmental rights: The obstacles to an enabling environment

Geraint Ellis

Geraint Ellis is Professor of Environmental Planning at Queen's University Belfast, but outside academia is involved with various environmental campaigns and community initiatives, including the campaign to Stop the Whitehead Oil Terminal (SWOT), proposed for Belfast Lough.

Charlie Holt

Charlie Holt leads the European work of Global Climate Legal Defence (CliDef), an organisation set up to support climate activists facing SLAPPs and other legal threats. He sits on the Steering Committee of the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) and the European Commission's Expert Group on SLAPPs, and co-chairs the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition. Charlie previously led Greenpeace International's anti-SLAPP strategy, helping to set up the US anti-SLAPP coalition Protect the Protest in 2018, and has advised on the response of GPI on two aggressive large-scale SLAPPs targeting Greenpeace entities in the USA.

Alison Hough

Alison Hough is a senior law lecturer in the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) (13 yrs) and researcher specialising in environmental governance and justice. Formerly a practising barrister (8 yrs). An Taisce ELIG Bureau Representative. Member of the EJNI (Environmental Justice Network Ireland), IALT, IELA (Irish Environmental Law Association) and UKELA. Volunteer with many local and national organisations (see below). Active on environmental NGO issues in Ireland.

Fred Logue

Dr Fred Logue is a practising solicitor and managing partner of FP Logue LLP a firm specialising in public law litigation. Dr Logue holds a science degree from University College Dublin, a PhD in physics from Trinity College Dublin and diplomas in arbitration law and judicial skills and decision making. Dr Logue is a member of the Institute of Physics and the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment.

Moderator

Matthew John O'Toole

Matthew John O'Toole MLA is an Irish nationalist politician, former civil servant, and journalist, serving as leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and leader of the opposition since 2022, and a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Belfast South since 2020.

1.30PM - 2.45PM PANEL 3

Investigations: At what cost?

Lesley Caplin

Lesley Caplin is an experienced commercial litigator and media specialist. Her practice primarily focuses on media defence for a wide range of clients, including broadcasters, digital platforms, newspapers and publishers. Lesley is an experienced civil jury practitioner and has been involved in many of the seminal defamation actions in Ireland in recent years.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Jim Fitzpatrick is an award-winning independent broadcaster, producer and journalist with a specialist interest in economics and politics. He is currently Consulting Editor at The Irish News in Belfast, Northern Ireland’s leading daily newspaper.  

His investigations work in recent years for organisations such as OCCRP (Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) and openDemocracy have focused on transparency issues and the intersection of money and politics.  At openDemocracy he also held the brief for reporting on SLAPPs.

Conor Graham

Conor Graham has been involved in the Irish book trade and publishing sector for over 30 years. A native of Holywood, Co Down, he began his career with Waterstones in Belfast in the early nineties, before moving into book publishing in 2000 where he held a variety of positions in most areas of the business with various Irish, UK and US publishers. In 2012 he acquired Irish Academic Press and immediately established a new trade imprint, Merrion Press, which has gone on to grow rapidly into one of the leading independent general publishers in the Irish market today.

Kristian Lasslett

Kristian Lasslett is an investigative criminologist specialising in the study of elite networks involved in the organisation of serious economic crime. His research focuses thematically on grand corruption, kleptocracy, money laundering and environmental crimes. Kristian’s area-focus is the Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, Russia, ‘the offshore’, and international financial centres. He specialises in using advanced investigative methods to track complex illicit schemes and the transnational enabling structures they are executed through. Kristian is based at Ulster University where he is Professor of Criminology, he is also a researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies in Sweden.

Michael Foley

Dr Michael Foley is professor emeritus at TU Dublin and a former journalist at the Irish Times. He worked in media development in the Balkans, Central Asia and the Middle East with the International federation of Journalists, the BBC Media Action, UNESCO and UNICEF. He has written extensively on media issues for many publications including Index. He is a member of the NUJ’s Ethic Council.

3.15PM - 4.30PM PANEL 4

Tackling SLAPPs: Law and Regulation

Francesca Farrington

Dr Francesca Farrington is a lecturer at the School of Law, University of Aberdeen. She is co-convener of the Anti-SLAPP Research Hub where she and her colleagues investigate the strategic use of litigation to suppress freedom of expression on matters of public interest. She has acted as a consultant on SLAPPs for the European Parliament, the United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe and is a TrialWatch expert at the Clooney Foundation for Justice.

Bobbie-Leigh Herdman

Bobbie-Leigh Herdman was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 2014. She practises mainly in the areas of criminal law and judicial review and also routinely appears in the High Court in personal injury and defamation actions, acting for both Plaintiffs and Defendants. She was Counsel for the Defendant, Journalist Malachi O'Doherty, in a defamation case taken against him by the Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly. She successfully argued that the litigation amounted to a SLAPP. The case was dismissed with indemnity costs awarded to the Defendant.

Eoin O’Dell

Dr Eoin O’Dell is an Associate Professor of Law in Trinity College Dublin. He researches and publishes primarily in the fields of freedom of expression, and private and commercial law – and especially where they overlap in IP, IT and cyberlaw.

Pia Sarma

Pia Sarma is the Editorial Legal Director of Times Newspapers Limited, the publisher of The Times and The Sunday Times, and Deputy General Counsel at News UK, London.  She advises the editors and journalists of both publications on all content issues including investigations, and leads the titles’ defence litigation which has over the years liberalised laws for public interest and investigative journalism. Pia has played a key role in the changes in law and regulation affecting journalism and free speech in the UK, campaigning for protections for journalism. Pia is Chair of the London Media Lawyers’ Association, an organisation representing UK broadcasters and publishers. 

Susan Coughtrie

Susan Coughtrie has been Director of the Foreign Policy Centre since January 2023. Susan joined FPC in July 2020 as Project Director for the Unsafe for Scrutiny project, which explores the risks and threats facing journalists uncovering financial crime and corruption. The findings of this research led Susan to co-found the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition in January 2021, which she continues to co-chair. She was the lead author of the FPC report ‘London Calling’: The issue of legal intimidation and SLAPPs against media emanating from the United Kingdom, published together with ARTICLE 19 in 2022. Susan has undertaken a variety of consultancy work in the media sphere, having previously worked at the international free expression organisation ARTICLE 19 and as an advisor to the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF).

3.15PM - 4.30PM KEYNOTE SPEECH BY CAOILFHIONN GALLAGHER KC

Caoilfhionn Gallagher

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC is a human rights lawyer and barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, and in February 2023 she was appointed as Ireland’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection. She has acted in many landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights, international tribunals and the UK, including representing bereaved families and survivors of the 7/7 London Bombings and the Hillsborough disaster and acting in test cases which have changed the law on issues including the rights of children in police custody, State obligations to victims and survivors of domestic abuse and child sexual abuse, and abortion in Northern Ireland.

4.50PM - 5.00M CLOSING MESSAGE

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