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

That is okay. I thank the Senator for his questions and the panel for the responses.

I have a couple of points to wrap up this discussion. Thinking back on what happened at the previous two meetings, last week we were treated to Twitter and Facebook rules and community standards. A number of us instanced cases to which we had been personally exposed and there was an acknowledgement that the community standards were evolving. That is a word that was employed here earlier with respect to sites generally. They are not fit for purpose. That is where we are.

We do not want to replicate earlier addresses, but we are seeking to point to functional, effective regulation, with real enforceability. How can we do this if it is not through legislation? We are, first and foremost, legislators, something that is often overlooked. It is our primary function in being here. We are the lawmakers and tge legislators have failed to grapple with this issue in all the years indicated by Dr. Aiken. The delegates have touched on this issue in responses to my colleagues, but is the objective of functional, effective regulation, with real enforceability, achievable if the platforms on the Internet are to continue to do the wonderful work they do? They provide a service and access, as I was at pains to point out last week with the service providers. We are honing in on harmful communications and inappropriate utilisation of the services, but it is a small part of the whole. As it is the core of our address, quite obviously it comes to the fore. Is it within our gift to point to regulation that does not have statutory and legislative support?