Ms Claire Rush:

I do not have too much to add to what Mr. Ó Broin has said. I thank the Deputy and note and appreciate his concerns in this regard. One of the points he made is that the heightened layer of responsibility arising from being a publisher would result in people queueing up at the door to take claims and so on. As Mr. Meade mentioned earlier in respect of an obligation to preview, pre-screen or pre-moderate every single piece of content against all the laws in force anywhere in the world the content might be available or might be shared, regardless of the operational burden and cost, such an obligation would have a significant chilling effect. Companies would be incentivised to take down anything that is remotely dubious or questionable from a legal perspective. They would have to err on the side of removing everything, which could have a very detrimental effect on the availability of content. It is just one perspective. I absolutely appreciate all the other points the Deputy has raised, to which Mr. Ó Broin has responded. We are here because we accept and know that this is an opportunity to find a better way forward with regard to a future regulatory model which would learn from and build on other models and which would be conscious of EU developments and developments that have worked in other countries. I hope that we can constructively engage in such a discussion with the committee.