Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Of course. She was present for quite a part of the meeting and is well entitled to that.

It is important to acknowledge that, while the focus of our engagement over a number of hours today has been on what we all accept are the worst excesses of human usage of each of the platforms' sites, the services they provide are very valuable, appreciated and utilised responsibly by the overwhelming majority of their respective customers.

That needs to be said because, otherwise, we are giving a very skewed image and perception of the respective sites with which our guests are involved. I am of the view that this acknowledgment is important, but the focus of our address is harmful online activity. Although we are some steps away from producing our report and recommendations, I get the sense that there is a general unified opinion coming from all the members that the platform companies are facilitating significantly harmful postings, including criminal acts, that have given rise to serious injury and worse. I hope our guests are equally committed to addressing and, where possible at all, eradicating that activity.

I wish to reflect on the contributions of those who appears before us last week. They were very strong in their recommendations. The committee is very mindful of the importance of working together. The respective component parts of the industry must work with legislators to try to reach a better situation where safety is critical and most especially in respect of children, but where there is safety for all users if at all possible.

Some of our guests keep referring to rules. There has been talk of Twitter rules and Facebook rules. When the rules have been broken, the companies respond. It is almost a competition from our perspective. In terms of breaking the rules, in many of those instances and most certainly in the most serious of the cases that have been reported to us, we would like to see that people have broken the law. It is not enough just to look at some as being inappropriate. We would like to see some of the cases that have been reflected to us as involving illegality.

I am minded of the contribution last week of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. I am very grateful to Mr. John Church, its chief executive. I will just instance one of the cases that was brought to its attention. A 16 year old girl told Childline that she had sent images to a former boyfriend, who then shared them with others without her permission. With the images circulating widely, the girl told Childline she could not face going back to school and was contemplating suicide. I do not expect a response on that today but, in the context of the exercise we have embarked on, we are very mindful of the harm, hurt and serious consequences involved and we want to try to find a means of address. We have only the power of recommendation to the Minister and the Government, but we will not shirk in our responsibilities in outlining the strongest recommendations if we believe they are the most appropriate.

Professor Joe Carthy was mentioned. He is the founding director of the UCD centre for cybersecurity. He made an analogy with automobile legislation. Every car has a number plate. Every car is registered to someone. He said while it is perfectly acceptable to use the Internet in any anonymous fashion, it is not acceptable to abuse, bully or libel others anonymously. He said it is akin to allowing people to drive cars without number plates.

This is a key area in respect of which legislation could make a huge difference. Professor Carthy believes that we should require social media platforms and online providers to register their users and that users should provide appropriate evidence of identity, and not just after the event or in following through when something outrageous has happened. He stated that users who can show that they have been bullied, harassed or abused on a social media platform should be legally entitled to find out the identity of the user carrying out the inappropriate behaviour. I would welcome a brief response to that. I know that if Professor Carthy was here he would like to ask our guests about this matter. I invite a response from Mr. Ó Broin. Our guests have probably all looked at a recording of last week's meeting so they know what I am talking about.