Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Therefore, it is not an entirely new phenomenon.

In response to Senator Healy Eames, the gap in the law I referred to is the Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act 2007. That Act introduced measures dealing with the use of the telephone system to send messages that are grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing or for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another person. That is covered in that legislation, but there might be a gap in the legislation when it comes to electronic communications infrastructure. That is one of the areas the committee might productively examine.

Senator Mac Conghail asked about ask.fm. This is an issue for several jurisdictions. As I understand it, this material is posted from an eastern European state and for that reason it is extremely difficult, practically, to be able to seek redress. It is an issue. One of the members asked if member states meet to try to agree certain ways of addressing these issues. This particular issue appears to be one on which we ought to see whether there are any remedies available.

I refer Senator Coghlan to an e-commerce directive which dealt in a different context with the question he raised. That directive, which is quite recent, stipulates that service providers are mere conduits and are not liable for the information transmitted over their networks, and that member states cannot impose a general obligation to monitor the traffic over those networks. In fact, there is case law of the European Court of Justice on that issue. It is a very difficult matter. One can go to court and get an order to require the service provider where at all feasible, and in most cases I believe it is feasible, to expose the anonymity. However, one comes up against the issue raised by Deputy O'Donovan that not everybody can afford to go to the court for such an order, especially if there is a cross-jurisdictional dimension. The tough truth is that no country has yet been successful in identifying a solution to the question Senator Coghlan raises.

Chairman, one could go on but I have done my best to answer most of the pertinent questions in so far as I can.