Provides an analysis of the origins, current sources, and character of privacy law in Ireland with a particular focus on how to navigate privacy claims and balance privacy with other interests before the Irish courts. It clarifies the relationship between private law protection of privacy rights in tort and statute, and constitutional conceptions of the right and compares how European Union and international law impacts on the privacy jurisprudence of the Irish courts.
Part One:
Addresses the sources of privacy rights in Ireland, with an account of how the right to privacy has been protected under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, explaining the influence of the ECHR on privacy adjudication before the CJEU and outlining the trickle-down impact of the decisions of both courts on the secondary laws of the European Union, and national law in turn.
Part Two:
Considers spatial privacy, the first of the three 'genres' of privacy under which the Irish courts' decisions can be grouped. It provides an overview of the spaces of home, family, and sexual life, which the courts have found to be protected by a constitutional right to privacy, and looks at how these categories have expanded over time to also vindicate privacy rights in certain public settings.
Part Three:
Covers the courts decisions concerning informational privacy and deals with the rights to privacy concerning personal information and personal communications. It includes an examination of the various forms of confidentiality and privilege recognised as importing a privacy interest under Irish law, and the common law, statutory and constitutional protections on which those claims are based. It also covers the law governing privacy of communications in Ireland – an area of historical complexity and ongoing change given reforms to European data retention law, the pending decision in Dwyer v Commissioner of Garda Síochána, and corollary amendments to national legislation.
