SLAPPs in Ireland: What Is Coming

A SLAPP, a strategic lawsuit against public participation, is a claim brought to silence public participation rather than to vindicate reputation. Ireland has legislated against SLAPPs once and is legislating again, and neither measure is in force: Part 7 of the Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026 is not commenced, and a separate SLAPP Bill 2026 covering all civil proceedings, initiated in the Dáil on 1 July 2026, will replace it. This guide explains what a SLAPP is, what the Bill and the EU Directive behind it are designed to do, and the position today for a claimant with a genuine claim and for the journalist, campaigner, reviewer or resident on the receiving end of one.

1. What a SLAPP Is

The label describes the purpose of a claim, not its cause of action, which is usually defamation because defamation is the claim that can be aimed at words. The pattern is a claimant with resources, often a company or a public figure, and a defendant without them, a journalist, a campaigner, a resident objecting to a development, a reviewer or a former employee, where the letter or the summons is designed to make the cost and worry of defending the claim do the work that the merits cannot. The claim may never reach a hearing; its effect is felt in the correspondence before it would. That is why anti-SLAPP measures concentrate on two things: having the claim dismissed early, and protecting the defendant on costs. The label is also contested: a claimant with a genuine grievance about a false statement of fact is not bringing a SLAPP because the defendant is a journalist.

2. Part 7 of the 2026 Act: Enacted, Not Commenced

The Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026 (No. 2 of 2026) was signed on 19 February 2026 and commenced on 1 March 2026 by S.I. 61/2026, with exceptions: Part 7, the anti-SLAPP provisions, and sections 34M and 34N, which would let a court invite the parties to ADR and attach costs consequences. Everything else is in force, including the abolition of juries for High Court actions commenced on or after 1 March 2026, the serious harm test for companies in section 12, the section 45 identification order and the section 34K duty to advise on ADR, all explained in the Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026, explained. Part 7 is on the statute book but has no effect until commenced, and SLAPPs are instead to be dealt with in a separate Bill that will replace it. A defendant who believes a claim is a SLAPP has no SLAPP-specific procedure to invoke today.

3. The SLAPP Bill 2026 and the EU Anti-SLAPP Directive

The SLAPP Bill 2026 was initiated in the Dáil on 1 July 2026. Two features distinguish it from Part 7: it covers all civil proceedings rather than defamation alone, so a claim aimed at public participation falls within it whatever the cause of action, and it will replace Part 7 rather than sit beside it. It has not been enacted, and a Bill can change at every stage, so nothing in it can be relied on now. The background is the EU Anti-SLAPP Directive, Directive (EU) 2024/1069, which requires member states to provide early dismissal and costs protections in SLAPP cases with cross-border implications. The Directive sets the floor for the cross-border case; whether the Irish Bill extends the same protections to a purely domestic dispute is a matter for the text as enacted.

4. What Anti-SLAPP Protection Would Change

Early dismissal means a defendant could apply to have a claim dismissed at the outset, before discovery, the exchange of evidence and the costs that follow, on the basis that it is a SLAPP. Costs protection means the defendant who succeeds is not left carrying their own costs. Neither exists in Irish defamation law today. Until the Bill is enacted and commenced, both sides work with the tools that do exist: the elements of the tort in section 6, the serious harm test in section 12, the defences in the 2009 Act as amended, the costs risk a claimant takes on if the claim fails, and the high bar for restraining publication before trial.

5. If You Have a Genuine Claim: Plead It Properly

The anti-SLAPP debate makes some claimants nervous of suing at all, which is the wrong lesson. A genuine claim is one that fits section 6: a statement that tends to injure your reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society, published to at least one person other than you, that identifies you, and that is false. The way to keep a genuine claim from looking like a SLAPP is to plead it as one. Identify the specific statement of fact you say is false and sue on that, not on the article, the campaign or the review as a whole. Do not sue the critic for the criticism: an opinion honestly held, based on facts that were true or indicated, on a matter of public interest, is defended under section 20, and a claim built on it says more about the claimant than the defendant. If the claimant is a company, section 12 requires serious harm to its reputation, meaning serious financial loss for a body trading for profit, so have the evidence of that loss before the letter goes; there is no serious harm test for the owner or director named alongside. Before issuing, section 34K requires your solicitor to inform you of the Press Council complaint and the Broadcasting Act right of reply and to file a statutory declaration with the originating document. Consider whether a section 28 declaratory order, which declares the statement false and defamatory without damages, is the proportionate remedy. The Defamation Claim Checker runs the section 6 elements before anything is sent.

6. If You Are the Critic: The Defences That Exist Now

A journalist, campaigner, reviewer or resident holding a letter has no anti-SLAPP motion to bring, but has defences written for this ground. Truth (section 16) is complete and the burden is on the defendant to prove it, so the documents behind the piece are the first thing to gather. Honest opinion (section 20) covers a statement recognisable as opinion, honestly held, based on facts that were true or indicated, on a matter of public interest or one the reasonable person would consider opinion. Fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest (section 26 as substituted by the 2026 Act) protects a statement that was fair, in the public interest, reasonably believed to be in the public interest and published in good faith, the defence for the public-interest story that contains an error. Qualified privilege (section 18) covers a statement made by a person with a duty or interest in making it to a person with a corresponding duty or interest in receiving it, and is lost only where the plaintiff proves malice. Innocent publication (section 27) protects the person who was not the author, editor or publisher and took reasonable care. Every defence with the facts it needs is in defences to defamation: truth, honest opinion and privilege, and the defence-side sequence is on our page on defending a defamation claim.

7. Costs, the Circuit Court and Settlement

Costs are what make a SLAPP work, and costs are also the claimant’s exposure: court proceedings carry a risk of being ordered to pay the other side’s costs if the claim fails, so a claimant who issues a weak claim to silence a critic is taking on the critic’s costs as well as their own. The Circuit Court’s jurisdiction in defamation is €75,000, and since 1 March 2026 it can grant the section 28 declaratory order, a section 30 correction order and a section 33 prohibition order; High Court actions commenced on or after 1 March 2026 are decided by a judge alone. Most Circuit Court defamation claims settle before hearing, and section 34K puts the ADR options on the table before the summons issues. A defendant who stands over the piece should say so in a reply that reads like a defence; one who got a fact wrong has the apology under section 24, which is not an admission of liability, and the offer of amends under sections 22 and 23, made before the defence is delivered. Fees after the consultation are quoted in writing under section 150 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015.

8. Silencing Before Trial: The High Bar

The other tool a SLAPP reaches for is the injunction, and here Irish law already sets a high bar. The courts treat an order restraining publication before trial as exceptional, because of freedom of expression under Article 40.6.1 of the Constitution and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Section 33 allows a prohibition order only where the court is satisfied the statement is defamatory and the defendant has no defence reasonably likely to succeed, so a defendant with an arguable honest opinion or section 26 defence is not silenced before the case is heard; an order after judgment restraining repetition is the usual form. An interim or interlocutory application is made on affidavit in the High Court or Circuit Court, and an undertaking as to damages is normally required. People who receive a letter and people who send one get the same analysis from the other side; we never act for both sides of the same dispute.