Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That was a very interesting contribution. I second Senator O'Donovan's proposed amendment to the Order of Business.
Further to raising an issue yesterday regarding abuse of social media and anonymous tweets, I brought the issue to the attention of Mr. Billy Hawkes, the Data Protection Commissioner. In a warning to an MEP not to repeat lies on Twitter, unless he takes down those tweets he will be open to prosecution by the Data Protection Commissioner. I hope to proceed in this regard as that will teach certain people lessons about how to treat others and to have some respect and manners for the ordinary citizen and not to walk on the ordinary citizen.
I certainly will campaign to protect the rights of Irish citizens in respect of social media and the abuse thereof. I certainly will investigate what other action should be taken in the State in this particular regard. What is happening at present is that tweets and statements are being put up by anonymous sources, which can be and will be traced. However, these are then fed into the system and become a reality. Then, media such as TheJournal.ie carry out an investigation, check the sources and will not put them up unless they are satisfied the facts are true and cannot be challenged in court or otherwise. This is an area the Seanad should debate in the autumn. The appropriate Minister should be brought into the House to outline precisely what action is being taken in the State. The citizens have a right to be protected and I note Members have protection in the Chamber.

We have the right of response in this House and we have the privilege to make statements to alert people to this issue and, if necessary, name those who are abusing the system. When a statement goes up, it leads to further abuses throughout the country and it ends up as a fact when it is only fiction. For all time, that will be in Google. If one Googles a name, those wrong statements will appear. I am alerting the House to this issue. I will be considering a Private Members' Bill and I have been in contact with the Data Protection Commissioner to see if he requires further support. He could bring that to the Government.

I support the points made by Senators O'Brien and Bacik on the situation in Gaza. It is outrageous. I ask the Israelis to desist and ask Hamas to stop firing bombs into Israel. It is only provoking a very powerful foe.