Mr. Michael O'Keeffe:

I will ask my colleague Ms Craig to deal with harmful online content. The BAI and the European Commission have been doing a huge amount of work on disinformation with the voluntary code of practice. We released two pieces of research in the last couple of years, ElectCheck and CodeCheck, on how the platforms were fulfilling the requirements of the code. The results were not great to be honest, and it raises the question of whether there is a need for greater intervention from a regulatory perspective. We continue to do more work in that area.

The reason we suggested waiting is that we believe there will be further legislative developments at European level that will need to be taken into account. To go back to my earlier point about urgency, our feeling was that while it would be premature on one level, on another level, because it is so complex, this legislation needs to go through. It would make more sense to await the current legislative developments. We are not dismissing the concerns and issues around that.

On the content levy, we have been clear on our rationale. The original exclusion of new and current affairs was for a particular reason. For media plurality, and returning to the Senator's point on disinformation, we believe there should not be a restriction on news and current affairs in schemes.

The European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services, ERGA, has done significant work on the preparation of schemes of this nature as they are being introduced in a range of jurisdictions. We are involved in a group that is involved in that process and will continue to support that work.

If one is taking a percentage of a levy from broadcasters and, indeed, new media, I am not sure one can restrict a scheme to applications from organisations that are supported by the sector. In the history of schemes of this nature, for example, the Sound and Vision scheme on the television side, 95% of funding goes to independent producers who have the support of broadcasters. It is inevitable that a scheme of this nature will provide great support to the independent production sector when it is introduced.