Ms Cori Crider:

I am very happy to do so. In January, Foxglove and two content moderators who are not here today, Ibrahim Halawa and Paria Moshfeghi, met with the Tánaiste and raised many of the same conditions and issues the committee is here to discuss today. We raised the problems that arise both for Facebook's millions of users and for workers with the outsourcing model. We raised the fact that workers are not permitted to retain their NDAs, we raised questions about mental health support and we also raised the matter of Covid safety.

On the Covid safety issues, we were directed to the HSA. We sought to engage with the HSA and wrote letters asking if the authority was interested in speaking to witnesses and gathering testimony from people about the live Covid cases that have happened on the floor since the reopening. We never received a reply from the HSA at any point, although I am given to understand that it later made contact with the outsourcing firm and it basically said everything was kosher and copacetic, which is perplexing given the extremely narrow and limited scope of its investigation into Covid safety and the fact that it did not talk to lots of relevant witnesses. That is what it is.

We do not have a copy of the letter the Tánaiste sent to Facebook. What we have instead, as I understand it, is Facebook's reply to him and a covering note, which we received at 7 o'clock last night. There are quotes in it from what the Tánaiste said but I do not have the full thing that was ultimately set out so I do not know. It seems there was a question about remote working and the engagement on that was the same as mentioned in the discussion with Senator Garvey, wherein Facebook said there are different kinds of content and that explains why the company was pulling people in. It did not engage at all with the question of outsourcing and there was no indication in the covering note as to whether the Tánaiste intends to take it up further. Facebook basically said to take it up with the HSA as this is its problem.

Regarding mental health support, Facebook responded by saying its partners have to give access to on-site counselling. It is essentially just reiterating the wellness coach provision but, as the committee has heard, those people are not doctors. Facebook has refused to engage with the point that a cup of tea and a chat, as one member referred to it, is not enough. This is a medical issue. Facebook does not engage with that point and I am not clear from the tenor of the Tánaiste's response to us, attached in a covering note, whether he intends to take that up.

It is the same with the issue of the NDAs. I will not go over again the endless chase we have engaged in, running around the houses to try to get everybody to give us the documentation, but suffice it to say we have asked in many ways and multiple times, including on solicitors' letterheads, for all relevant documents and they have not been disclosed. There is a job to do here and we at Foxglove and the moderators need the members' help as regulators to hold these companies to account. I thank the Deputy for his question.