statement acknowledging that there had been "serious discrepancies" in the article it had published (also claiming that the woman concerned was a prostitute), apologised for the distress caused, and removed the article from its website. In addition, Paton Walsh stated that he had had "no hand" in the drafting of the Sunday Independent article. Paton Walsh said that "an editor" in the Sunday Independent had contacted him on the Saturday seeking help to confirm reports that Mr Lawlor had died. Paton Walsh said that he had spoken with an official police spokesperson and relayed only the contents of three conversations with this same person to their news desk, saying that he had stressed that it was "only a possibility the girl was a prostitute". It was reported on Wednesday 26 October that the interpreter, Julia Kushnir, was seeking apologies from those newspapers who had published erroneous reports that she was a prostitute, and that she was likely to sue for damages if the newspapers did not comply. The controversy sparked a debate over press standards in Ireland, with the Labour Party Senator Kathleen O'Meara calling for the establishment of a Press Council to monitor standards in the print media. The then Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, stated that the print media coverage of Mr Lawlor's death was "grossly offensive, cruel and lacking in foundation and fact", and that defamation was not enough to deal with this kind of posthumous coverage. He said that legislation was being drafted to establish an appropriate press complaints council. On 10 June 2006, the Irish Times reported that Kushnir was to sue The Observer, the Sunday Independent, the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday World, the Irish Sunday Mirror, and the Irish Independent over the erroneous claim that she was a prostitute. On 6 November 2007, the four Irish newspapers agreed to pay Kushnir libel damages totalling €500,000 before libel proceedings began in the Irish High Court and lawyers for the four newspapers apologised in court for the offence caused. The Observer newspaper had earlier settled its libel action for approximately €100,000. Death of Sgt. Tania Corcoran The Sunday Independent sparked another furore in March 2007 when the newspaper featured a front-page report of the death in childbirth of Garda Sergeant Tania Corcoran. A headline noted that Sgt Corcoran was the wife of the ERU Garda who had fired a fatal shot in the Abbeylara siege, incensing