Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I had to step out earlier to make a contribution on legislation.

I have been keeping up, however, and people have been live tweeting this session as well, which was helpful. I was able to keep an eye on what was going on. I have a question on health and safety in respect of these roles. This is a key issue we must focus on. A culture of secrecy has clearly been outlined, and it is guarded by these non-disclosure agreements. In many ways, however, it is not just that aspect; much more is going on that keeps this state of affairs secret and behind closed doors. There are serious psychological implications for the workers doing this work. My questions are probably mainly for Ms Ní Bhrógáin because they focus on human resource, HR, issues, but they are also for Ms Plunkett or Ms Crider, if they wish to contribute as well.

I am going to hazard a guess that risk assessments are not routinely carried out, given these workers are not screened before they start. Therefore, is it possible to conduct risk assessments and to mitigate the risks that exist? I ask that because this is dangerous work, but so is climbing up the side of a building. In that case, however, we put in place measures to ensure that such workers are kept safe in their workplace. Does Ms Ní Bhrógáin believe it is possible to legislate or to ensure regulations are put in place that will make this work safe? In an ideal world, by the way, and no one will disagree with this, we would love if we did not need this work to be done and that everything on social media consisted of kittens on skateboards. It does not, however, so we need some kind of robust way to deal with this situation. Is it possible to conduct risk assessments? I doubt if they are conducted, but I would be delighted if that was the case.

Is there an analogous grade category? Ms Ní Bhrógáin, and indeed Senator Gavan, will be familiar with this term. There is such a category in the main employers, namely, Facebook and the other platforms. However, is there any grade in the private or public sectors that Ms Ní Bhrógáin would consider to be an analogous grade, one we could point to as having the correct supports in place? My worry is that we will hear from the employers and others, and they will simply throw their hands up in the air and say this area just cannot be regulated because it is just awful and there is nothing we can do. I believe, though, that we can do something and that we can make this workplace a safe one to work in and also one where workers are rewarded with decent pay and fair terms.