Mr. Ronan Lupton:

In terms of the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, the main legislation we will need to worry about is the Digital Services Act. What that will do is modify fundamentally legislation called the e-Commerce directive, which we transposed into Irish law under SI 68 in 2003. That provides a number of protections for online platforms, which are really the nuts and bolts of what this Bill needs to fix, in other words, how does one get content taken down and reported and so forth.

My main point is this. If we are at pre-legislative scrutiny at this stage and we have a large item of legislation such as the Digital Services Act at least being drafted and put out there for the European processes to take effect, what is happening is a dual track. We are operating on the online safety and media regulation Bill, which will fundamentally put in national criteria for dealing with content online. As that will all shift, we are working on the current legislative basis in terms of how the platforms operate at this stage.

My main point initially was to ask why do we not just get on with the AVMSD, park the rest of it and see what comes out in terms of the Digital Services Act? That is not really practical when we think about what could go on online in the interim.

The key question Deputy Mythen was really getting at was, therefore, what the differences are and whether we can identify them. I would need much more time to do that but I know from the written submissions the committee has received, particularly from the platforms, that much of the information is broken out to show were those issues arise, fundamentally with regard to the defences around hosting. In other words, is the platform a publisher? The answer is invariably "No" but what are their duties in terms of taking down deleterious, criminal and questionable content? If we are going to have a situation where a regulator has certain powers under national legislation, which fundamentally conflict with what the Digital Services Act ultimately ends up legislating for and dictating, that is the type of scenario we need to be careful about. Ultimately, it will mean possibly unpicking, which is really where I am going in terms of my very clear one-word submission in the opening statement. I want to make sure that we do not inefficiently use our time and that of the Attorney General's office and the various parliamentary draftspeople.

That is not to the detriment of society, it must be said. I would never say that. Ultimately, we would be doing something but the question is, how is it going to play out? Ultimately, European law will be superior to what we do. We will, therefore, have to retrofit it and that is a key issue. It is difficult in the sense that, yes, the AVMSD is there, we are late on it and need to do it and therefore, let us get it done. There is that aspect of it.

I have, however, been involved in reports in this space since 2014 and 2017 through the Internet content advisory group and the Law Reform Commission. I agree with the conclusions of both even though they are different. It is, however, really that point of whether we can look at the future and see what is going to be there and maybe try to plan for that. It is very difficult to do so but hopefully that at least seeks to address some of the questions Deputy Mythen had.