Ms Sinéad McSweeney:

Where content amounts to a criminal offence, law enforcement can request information on the account from Twitter. We publish details of the requests we receive from law enforcement agencies and governments on an annual basis.

The privacy of our users, however, is also very important to us and we enter a commitment with all users that we do not share their private information with third parties. We must balance our commitment to privacy of users with the issues mentioned by the Deputy. It is important, particularly in this space, that we strive to take a step back and ensure we put as much energy into preventing these occurrences on-line as we are to dealing with the minority of incidents that occur. As a company, in conjunction with many youth organisations and Internet safety organisations, we are anxious to push the debate into that space, particularly with young people. We take our children into the world at a young age, be it to a restaurant, to school or to visit relatives, and we expect a certain standard of behaviour from them. They learn that standard from us and we help instil values in them. As parents, we must bring those values into their behaviour in the on-line world and prevent and discourage people from making the offensive comments that were mentioned, and to realise the consequences of such comments.