Ms Julie Inman Grant:

In the four and a half years I have been in this role, we have quintupled in size. When I came in, there were 35 people in the office. We have grown with schemes and functions and will be at almost 200 by the end of the year. We are in the middle of a major hiring boom now to accommodate the new functions which will take significant man and woman power. We are about 70% women at the eSafety Commissioner and 30% men. I think sometimes Mr. Dagg feels outnumbered. I used to say when I was in tech, where the proportion of men to women was the opposite, that the odds were good but the goods were odd. That was an inside tech joke. I will not do any more joking.

We started with a Australian $10 million budget. This year we are at Australian $55 million. It feels like a luxury but we will use every penny to put towards fulfilling our mission of keeping all Australians safer and having more positive experiences online. We are comparatively small compared with our brethren in national security or the law enforcement community, equivalent to An Garda.

What I would say, first, is "due diligence". You have obviously been thinking about this for a long time. We have engaged with various sectors of the Irish Government for at least two years. You are getting that right and trying to make sure you get the policy settings right. Our bias is that having a citizen-facing service is very valuable to citizens and the individuals impacted harmfully and as a way to surface up what is happening in the online environment and assess those trends.

It is important to make sure to choose someone for commissioner who has an understanding of how the technology industry works. What has helped me in this role is knowing what points they will come in and talk about. I know what their limitations are so I can be reasonable but I also know when they can do better. It is about having that understanding of trust and safety, how harms manifest, how online platforms can be weaponised, how to engage constructively with the industry to the extent one can and when to wield the stick. Those are all important considerations when choosing the person to lead these teams.

I have a philosophy of hiring smart, nice people who have a passion for making a change and a difference. We see the most horrible aspects of humanity every day, particularly the pro-terrorist content and child sexual abuse material our investigators look at. We have extensive wellness programmes in place and we try to make the culture positive so we walk in every day with a spring in our step waiting to help more people.