During an interview on RTE's Saturday Night Show (January 1 2014) The gay performance artist Rory O'Neill said that certain specific people in Ireland were homophobic because of their stance on the question of gay marriage and gay adoption. This prompted a deluge of writ letters from those Rory named as homophobic. Following this, RTE apologised and paid out €85,000 in damages. Of these events, Willie Kealy wrote in The Irish Independent:
"In the real world, that was the end of the "debate". Those who took offence at being called homophobic were able to continue to express their opinions – Breda O'Brien of the Irish Times and David Quinn of the Iona Institute were able to talk or write about it without fear of legal sanction. But otherwise there was nothing. This is because our libel laws are very conducive to closing down any debate that might tend towards the contentious.