Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their contributions and for appearing before the committee. I have a general, observation-style question. I always defensively preface the following point by insisting I am not in favour of censorship, restriction or anything like that but I seek our guests' views on a matter. Further guests will come before the committee and I would also like to hear their views. Legislation reflects the actions of people, and whether they do something that could be deemed an offence or whether an offence needs to be created. The core problem is that some platforms are completely unregulated. There is an insane, wild west scenario. It is impossible to imagine television, radio or newspapers uniformly stating that even though they broadcast, transmit or publish something, they have no responsibility for it. For some reason, however, long after the birth of the Internet and such platforms, we continue to tolerate, not just in our country but internationally, the notion that large, multi-billion euro, profitable corporations can continue in this fashion. That is the heart of what we have to grasp.

The reason I commented on censorship is that when I make the next point, people might say, "My God." I am not in any way a fan of what the Chinese Government or other totalitarian regimes do in restricting the ability of people to post on or access the Internet. Given that large corporations continue to interact in such jurisdictions, however, there must be a way, whether through delay, content monitoring or responsibility, that we can bring some of that to the wild west that currently operates in the western world. One measure we should move towards is the notion that victims would have the right to sue platforms. If there were a few substantial settlements, the providers would move quickly. What are our guests' views on that? Do they believe litigation and so on will have to be at the heart of reform in how we will deal with the matter in the next ten, 15 or 20 years?