Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Carolan and Mr. Sunderland for sharing their expertise with the committee. It has been really useful for me to hear their perspectives. I am sure other members will agree with me. My view is that this legislation needs to be very well proofed. It needs to be future-proofed from a technological advancements perspective and it needs to be accuracy-proofed to ensure we protect the integrity of the register of electors.

The Office of the Data Protection Commission identified three sections of the Bill in respect of which it considered impact assessments were needed. This may be a bit of naive question but is it not too late to start those impact assessments after the legislation is passed, if it is passed in its current form? What can be done in advance of that? What information could the witnesses provide to the committee in advance of that to give us a bit of comfort that such impact assessments would be possible, were we to go ahead with the Bill?

As the Fine Gael spokesperson on social media, I am hanging on Ms Carolan's every word. She is sharing not just her passion, but also a significant level of expertise in the online sphere. I agree that we need this legislation to be able to predict, assess and react to threats. I would value her input in terms of how she thinks the legislation could be amended or updated to allow for that. In her opening statement, she referred to astroturf campaigning. How could that be incorporated into the Bill?

What I have taken from her submission are three big items. The first is around the real-time online advertisement bank. From my perspective, we need to regulate both the advertisements and the money and funding behind the advertisements. Ms Carolan's comments are really interesting in terms of an international interference perspective. That is something on which the committee probably needs to do a bit more work.

She spoke about needing to go beyond the election period. That is a matter the committee has discussed on several occasions. It is just a matter of checking to see what is appropriate within the Bill, given that it is more about the election process itself. She also spoke about the political purposes and the definition thereof. I would certainly be interested if she were able to follow up with a written note on that in terms of how she believes the committee could incorporate or update it.

On the issue of advertisement libraries to which she referred, it seems to me that what she is saying is that the advertisement libraries were set up as a fix for the US. We have a very different system and political culture from those in the US. That is quite true when one looks across Europe as a whole. The fact that so many of the online social media platforms are headquartered in Ireland from a European perspective gives us a really good opportunity to ensure we are getting an Irish fix and a European fix for that as well. I would very much welcome the views of Ms Carolan in that regard.