International Protection Act 2026
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Prohibition on publication or broadcast of certain information | ||
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278. (1) A person shall not publish or broadcast, or cause to be published or broadcast, information likely to lead members of the public to identify that a person is an applicant without the consent of that person. | ||
(2) If any information is published or broadcast in contravention of subsection (1), the following persons, namely— | ||
(a) in the case of publication in a newspaper or periodical, any proprietor, any editor and any publisher of the newspaper or periodical, | ||
(b) in the case of any other publication, the person who publishes it, | ||
(c) in the case of a broadcast, any person who transmits or provides the programme in which the broadcast is made and any person having functions in relation to the programme corresponding to those of an editor of a newspaper, | ||
shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable— | ||
(i) on summary conviction, to a class A fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months, or both, or | ||
(ii) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding €50,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years, or both. | ||
(3) Where an offence under this section is committed by a body corporate and it is proved that the offence was committed with the consent or connivance, or was attributable to any wilful neglect, of a person who was a director, manager, secretary or other officer of the body corporate, or a person purporting to act in that capacity, that person, as well as the body corporate, shall be guilty of an offence and may be proceeded against and punished as if he or she were guilty of the first-mentioned offence. | ||
(4) Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, subsection (3) shall apply in relation to the acts and defaults of a member in connection with his or her functions of management as if he or she were a director or manager of the body corporate. | ||
(5) Where a person is charged with an offence under subsection (2), it shall be a defence to prove that at the time of the alleged offence the person was not aware, and neither suspected nor had reason to suspect, that the publication or broadcast in question was of such information as is referred to in subsection (1). | ||
(6) In this section— | ||
“applicant” means a person who is or has been an applicant— | ||
(a) under this Act or the Act of 2015, or | ||
(b) within the meaning of— | ||
(i) the Act of 1996, | ||
(ii) the European Union (Subsidiary Protection) Regulations 2017 ( S.I. No. 409 of 2017 ), | ||
(iii) the European Union (Subsidiary Protection) Regulations 2013 ( S.I. No. 426 of 2013 ), or | ||
(iv) Regulation 4 of the European Communities (Eligibility for Protection) Regulations 2006 ( S.I. No. 518 of 2006 ); | ||
“broadcast” has the same meaning as it has in section 2 of the Broadcasting Act 2009 ; | ||
“publish” means publish, other than by way of broadcast, to the public or a portion of the public. |