Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 12 May 2021

Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht

General Scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed)

Professor Conor O'Mahony:

The recommendation in that regard is that there needs to be a definition. One of the key guiding principles is that the legal and regulatory environment needs to be predictable. If concepts are left undefined in a way that allows for a huge amount of subjectivity concerning what falls within a definition — the term "pornography" is notorious in legal terms in that respect — people will often not agree on what comes within the meaning of a term.

It is a matter of trying to comply with the requirement of clarity and predictability for people. I do not want to offer a particular view on how that definition should be phrased. However, it would be better to have a definition of key concepts that determine what is or is not captured by the Bill rather than leaving terms that are known to be subjective undefined in a way that invites disputes.

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