Mr. Dualta Ó Broin:

I will take each of the issues in turn. The Deputy is correct to state that the Digital Services Act, DSA, does not, as far as I know, seek to provide for transparency in political advertising. What it will do is provide an EU-wide baseline for all advertising. The European Commission has also said, however, that through the European democracy action plan, EDAP, it intends to introduce a separate legislative instrument which will provide for transparency in political advertising on an EU-wide basis. We expect that to appear in the next six months. The DSA provides the baseline for all advertising, but the EDAP will be a legislative instrument which introduces requirements for transparency in political advertising across the EU.

I accept the point that electoral law is a member state competence and the organising of elections falls under electoral law. It would seem to us, however, given this instrument is just on the horizon, that we should at least wait to see what it is or what its scope is going to be before bringing in these detailed provisions at this time. I do not want to suggest to the committee and I know it has spent a long time on this already, but it may be helpful - I do not know - to hear from the European Commission as to what its plans are in this space.

On responsibility and compliance, there is no issue with taking responsibility for getting details from an individual and putting them in the ads library. It is once it gets beyond that into the sources of funds and all of the other matters which are considered beyond that that we will take information from the individual who is looking to run the ad and, if there are investigations etc. beyond that, that we see it as a role for the regulator to play.

On the point of tools and changes, we make announcements where there are changes to any of our tools which require notifications to the appropriate regulator Obviously, we engage with the Data Protection Commission on an ongoing basis in respect of any changes we make to products and services, as appropriate in the EU.