LAST June Independent Newspapers signed up, along with other newspapers, to a statement of principles on the media and privacy.

This statement included the following: "The right of the child to privacy is expressly protected by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Ireland has adhered. By virtue of Article 16 of that Convention, it is provided no child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his/her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his/her honour or reputation'. `Child' is defined in the Convention as a person under 18 years of age.

The above is a paragraph (7.8) from the Report of the Commission on the Newspaper Industry, chaired by the former chief justice, Thomas Finlay, and including an array of notables from the newspaper industry.

Last Sunday week, the Sunday Independent published an item about a 17-year-old boy, Cormac Quinn, son of Maire Geoghegan-Quinn.

It reported: "Cormac is one of six boarders expelled [from St Mary's Diocesan School in Galway] because of their involvement in an incident in which a student had a finger broken." It stated that "over 20 students were involved in what a school source described as `a bit of typical high jinks which got out of hand'."

The paper went on to report that the school offered to have Cormac Quinn remain as a day student and quoted the school principal, Father Peter Rabbitte, as "confirming" that a full inquiry" was under way.

Several questions arise from this version of what happened: on what basis were six students out of 20 involved in the incident singled out for punishment before the "full inquiry was completed? Why were any students expelled in advance of the completion of that inquiry? Why was Cormac Quinn to be allowed to remain as a day student if he merited expulsion? Why was Cormac Quinn singled out by the Sunday Independent for identification from more than 20 boys involved in the incident and one of six expelled?

Apart from these questions, the mere publication of that article was a clear breach of the principle of privacy attaching to persons under 18 that Independent Newspapers signed up to seven months ago.

But that entirely improper invasion of the privacy of Cormac Quinn was aggravated by the apparent procedural unfairness in the affair and by the failure of the Sunday Independent to draw attention to these and to inquire about them, other than quoting a remark of Maire Geoghegan-Quinn.

THE harm is made worse still by the obvious reality that the affair would never have been reported at all had it not been for the prominence of the boy's mother in Irish public life.

And to add further insult to the injury inflicted, the item was published in a gossip column, renowned for being sleazy, under the name of the supposed author of that column, although it had been written by one of the paper's news reporters.

Last Sunday the Sunday Independent, again in its back-page gossip column, protested that it had "no hidden agendas" in its reporting of the St Mary's school incident.

Perversely, it sought to demonstrate that it had no hidden agenda by "balancing" its previous week's report by intruding into the private life of another minor who also happens to be the son of a public representative again, brazenly, breaching the principle on child privacy to which the newspaper's managing director signed up seven months ago.

The claim that the Sunday Independent has no hidden agenda is absurd. The following points illustrate that absurdity.

A recent report was researched for inclusion in that gossip column concerning the marital difficulties of somebody prominently associated with Independent Newspapers. . . .

Although the same gossip column has regularly featured items about the marital difficulties of other well-known and, as in this instance, minor public figures, nothing was published.

It is not just the application of double standards and of hidden agendas that is at issue here. Almost irrespective of who it is, a person's private marital difficulties are just that, private. Such matters have no bearing on matters that are "in" the public interest, although manifestly they are public interest.

And because they do not relate to what is "in" the public interest, there is no justification for the harm (embarrassment, humiliation or whatever) that such publicity would inflict. The generation of newspaper sales, manifestly, could not justify the infliction of such harm.

As stated, this applies "almost" irrespective of who the person in question is. But in this instance, the person is somebody who has made a sizeable fortune from the inflict ion of precisely the kind of harm that, it seems, he was able to avoid for himself because of his connections.

And the Sunday Independent has gone along with this, at least so far, while protesting that is has no "hidden agendas".

Furthermore, nothing about the marital difficulties of Tony O'Reilly in the early 1990s was published while, just at that time, similar difficulties in the life of Michael Smurfit were regularly featured.

So, as far as the Sunday Independent is concerned, the issue arising from the piece on Maire Geoghegan-Quinn's son is not whether this was an improper invasion of privacy but the running of hidden agendas and of hypocrisy on a grand scale.

MAIRE Geoghegan-Quinn's departure from Irish politics was not caused solely by this piece of cheap journalism.

She had twice previously in the last few years threatened to do just what she has now done, but was dissuaded from doing so by her close political colleagues.

This time she burned all her boats before anybody could get to her: by the time she spoke to Bertie Ahern on Saturday she had made it impossible for herself to retract her decision by posting notice of her intention to resign to hundreds of colleagues and supporters on Friday evening.

She was not happy with the account given by the former attorney general, Eoghan Fitzsimons, in his evidence to the Dail select committee examining the fall of the Albert Reynolds government. She had had enough of her husband and sons being used as unpaid messengers by her constituents.

Maire Geoghegan-Quinn is a huge loss to Irish politics. She is perhaps the finest public representative in Dail Eireann.

She has courage, clarity of expression, a fine intellect, integrity and decisiveness.

She may be the greatest Taoiseach we never bad. She has the capacity to be hugely successful in a variety of roles outside politics.