Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Higgins for her positive comments and for giving that very good outline of her own experience. The Deputy is absolutely correct that when we look at democracies around the world, democracy is fragile and protecting it is precious to us all.

As I outlined in the previous response around the short window of opportunity and the regulation of online political advertising in the run up to electoral events only, it sets out a specific purpose around who is paying for political advertising and that those who host that political advertising have an agent to work with that. It is complementary to a wider suite of measures in the context of the Digital Services Act and hate speech legislation, which thankfully is moving its way through finally.

From my following of the committee proceedings to date the issues seem to be around the content of a lot of political discourse and political advertising. We are moving to a space where there would be better regulation of that content. This legislation is solely tasked to regulate the actual registration of that and who pays for political advertising. It is about transparency, and that such information is displayed in a conspicuous manner. It has a role to play and it has been widely accepted in a European context that Ireland is being hailed as the first in Europe to do this. From that point of view it is transformative, as the Deputy has said.