Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 30 March 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

^ General Scheme of Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Dualta Ó Broin:

No. We have taken the position that we do not fact-check political speech, whether it is in organic content or political advertisements. We believe it is right that political speech should be seen and should be scrutinised more than it already is by placing it in an advertisements library. It is important to make the distinction, however, that this does not mean anything can be said by a politician in a political advertisement. Hate speech, for example, is not allowed, nor is suppression of voting, election turnout or that type of behaviour. A whole range of content is not allowed. As a general point, we do not fact-check and we do not send political speech material to the network of fact-checking organisations I spoke of earlier.

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