Mr. Ronan Lupton:

I will take Deputy Mythen's second question first. The Defamation Act is stand-alone legislation, and only the courts can determine whether something is defamatory. That is the reality of it. We will therefore not have a situation in which a regulator will be able to determine whether something tends to injure the reputation of an individual or a company in the minds of ordinary and reasonable members of society, which is what the test is. I think that will be an issue and it might be challenged before the courts as to where it should sit. There is an interplay between Article 40.6.1°.i of the Constitution, dealing with freedom of expression, and the Article 40 rights, which imply the protection of and right to a good name and the State vindicating that right. That interplay is very much hardwired into society here, and there needs to be very careful thought not only from the committee's reporting position but also when this Bill goes further in terms of amendments and how it will operate in that regard. A court is the only proper place to determine this, unless it is very clear that a really bad defamation has occurred. This is where most of the problems arise. The platform says it has not seen the content and says, "You are only telling us about it now." Therefore, we go back and check and the platform agrees to take it down, or it does not, but it does not make an assessment of it in terms of its defamatory nature or otherwise. The courts do that. I know Dr. McIntyre has highlighted that in his submission from Digital Rights Ireland, DRI.

As for online safety, there have been voluntary codes operating through the auspices of the hotline.ieservice and so forth. They have been very high-level and light as far as it goes. I was involved in those and I know how they operate. A lot of the content reports do not result in much but the odd time you get a very serious situation going where Interpol must get involved or the INHOPE network has to get involved in the reporting of online criminal content relating to children. I think the online safety codes will bring the necessary parties to the table. There will always be difficulties. If a new operator comes to town tomorrow morning and says, "We are just going to go Wild West here and are not going to comply with anything and we are global", that will be extremely difficult. Members have to ask themselves whether these codes are really practical and whether we can do anything to stop facilitating those services in Ireland. The answer is "No". It is an open platform. The Internet is pervasive. It is not a platform but is all around us in terms of connectivity. From that point of view, careful consideration needs to be given to how the codes will operate and what detail will go into them. It might well be that when the commission looks at them, there will be a consultation process of some description that will take account of the views of those who will be affected by them, namely the consumer, the child and the platforms, in order that we have a kind of middle ground that can operate the codes as they are.