Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for their contributions and all the volunteer referees and the other people around the country who are a vital part of sport in this country.

I will follow on from what was said by my colleague, Senator Shane Cassells, about the online abuse of referees and players. It is an issue others have raised. Such online abuse has become a growing trend.

In terms of the interactions by the organisations here with social media companies, do they believe the social media companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, are doing enough to combat online abuse in the area of sport?

This committee is considering the general scheme of the online safety and media regulation Bill. We will have an online safety commission for the first time in Ireland and it will be responsible for dealing with online harm, including online abuse. In terms of the witnesses' experience of sport, what issues would they like to see addressed by the online safety commissioner? Should there be an individual complaints mechanism provided for referees or players if they feel that they have not been treated fairly by the social media companies?

I am conscious of a lot of the very good efforts to combat racism and racist abuse within the sporting codes. Homophobic abuse has only briefly been touched on. It is a type of abuse that has been directed against referees and players. I ask the representatives of the organisations present to briefly outline what is being done to ensure that the LGBT community can feel far more included within the sporting codes. What more actions need to be taken either by sporting organisations generally or the Government?