Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Quill and Mr. Shanley. We are firing many questions at them and I will put a few more. Regarding some of their comments, I welcome Ms Quill's last comment on the relationship the media commission will have with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, DPC, with the new gambling commission and, indeed, with the new electoral commission in the area of political advertising. We will probably see a bit of overlap. When the Digital Services Act and the Digital Media Act come down the line, there will be a huge amount of work. I certainly see us coming back to this issue over the course of this Oireachtas to expand the legislation.

If citizens are to have confidence in this media commission, it is important that there will be an effective individual complaints mechanism. If I, as an individual, have a problem, especially with a social media company, and there is a failure to take action, it is important that there is a very clear mechanism by which it can be addressed. Part of the problem with the Data Protection Commission is that it is getting up to 10,000 individual complaints a year and is possibly not resourced to be able to deal with that. I would not like the same to happen with the media commission, particularly if there is a feeling that some of the social media companies are not responding quickly enough.

I welcome and agree with the point that there should be a number of commissioners. It should not be like the DPC. We need to amend the legislation there. I like the idea of a college of commissioners; it makes sense. I notice it is proposed to exclude those involved in linear broadcasting and newspapers as members of the commission, for obvious reasons, and consideration is to be given to excluding those involved in social media and tech companies.

Will the officials outline this further? I think commissioners will need to have some knowledge of that area.

I will flag one issue. I do not see a reason in the legislation for precluding a member of a local authority from being a commissioner. I understand why a Member of the Oireachtas or European Parliament should not be a commissioner but I see no reason for excluding members of a local authority from the commission as they do not have a remit in this area. I will seek to remove that requirement from the legislation.

We discussed the content levy in the context of pay TV and streaming services. Has an estimate been done of annual revenue from a content levy in the current market? What research has been done on the viability of such a content levy?