Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair for letting me come in on behalf of my party colleague, Deputy Sherlock. I thank all the witnesses for the incredible work they have been doing in this area, not only over the past couple of months but for a long time. I recognise loads of faces from other social justice campaigns. I am very happy to be a social justice warrior. It is great thing and we should have more social justice warriors. I am really excited to see representation from Dublin North-West with Ms Neary and Ms Ní Chonchubhair.

That is a really interest point about the committee and the social media companies. Social media companies are 24-hour and immediate. To think one would be able to catch up with something - there is a really valid point being made. These things are happening right now. I do not know why I am getting some of these algorithms while I am twiddling around on things. I am getting streams of stuff I have absolutely no interest in seeing. I do not know why they are coming up in my timeline. The proliferation of this is unbelievable. A really good point has been made about the immediacy of this. They are running 24 hours and changing all the time. I do not know the benefit of having a committee when the social media companies just need to apply their own community standards.

In the middle of the Covid crisis when there was misinformation flying around, a Government leaflet went out to every single household telling us what was what and what the misinformation was around vaccines. That was when things were constantly changing as well. We were still finding out about the vaccine and about Covid. I do not understand why there has not been one of those sent out to every single household at this point. We have the capacity to do it, with An Post. There is no reason that information has not gone out. I note that in Denmark an advert run by government has gone out on TV challenging some of the misinformation that is going on. Maybe I am being optimistic thinking a leaflet would be helpful. The sheer optics of Government putting information to paper and sending it out to every household surely has to be worthwhile. I would be interested to hear what the witnesses think. Is it something Government should be stepping up to do? Governments run ads all the time on TV so I am not sure I would buy the argument that it is too expensive or too complicated. That is a national intervention, not targeted at individuals. Would it be something that could be helpful? I might come in afterwards with a second question if that is all right.