In 1991, the Law Reform Commission put forward 59 recommendations for modernising Ireland’s libel laws. “Not in my lifetime,” declared one senior Fianna Fail politician of the day. Unless he dies in the coming week, he will be free to splutter over the precise detail of Michael McDowell’s forthcoming defamation bill, which is largely based on those recommendations.

This is the first overhaul of Irish libel law since 1961, and on that basis alone McDowell is to be congratulated. However, in order to squeeze the new legislation past his coalition cabinet colleagues, McDowell has been forced to tack something altogether less progressive onto the back of it.

Superficially, the argument for a new privacy bill might seem convincing — even public figures are entitled to a private life, and a 2004 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in favour of Princess Caroline of Monaco, who campaigned against German magazines publishing banal but unauthorised pictures, is the commonly cited precedent. Ignoring the obvious point that Ireland doesn’t have a royal family to get excited about, it is worth noting who, precisely, is manoeuvring to lever a privacy bill into place here.

There is not enough space in this magazine, let alone this column, to chronicle the way in which Fianna Fail members protected decades of corruption behind the shield of antiquated libel laws. Now, at the long-overdue moment of reform, who else but Fianna Fail seeks to impose fresh press restrictions from elsewhere. Why? The party’s concern for paparazzi-hounded celebrities might be almost touching — again, if Ireland had any. But we don’t, so the assumption has to be that other motives are at play.

The French press knew for years that both presidents Mitterrand and Chirac had illegitimate children, but did not publish because of the privacy laws in that country. The French interior minister, the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy — who is responsible for law enforcement — used his wife as a publicity tool to get himself elected. When she subsequently left him he used the privacy laws to try to disguise the fact. Should voters prepare themselves for comparable scenarios here? Even some involved in drafting McDowell’s libel reforms are deeply sceptical about a piggy-backed privacy bill, and point out that such rights are already guaranteed by both the constitution and current judicial practice.

The successful action by model Laura Bermingham against the Sunday Mirror for defamation and printing an intrusive picture grabbed backstage at a fashion show is one example — known locally as the Bermingham Two — but privacy cases here tend to be settled before they reach court.

French privacy law has become deeply discredited, not only as smokescreen for political hypocrisy, but as a cash-till for greedy celebrities who pretend that publicity is a one-way street.

Princess Caroline’s sister, Stephanie, has won several actions taken in France. Her brother, Albert, successfully sued Paris Match for reporting the existence of his illegitimate son, via an interview with the mother. In the coming months, beware Fianna Failers claiming sudden respect for French sophistication.