Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for attending. I know the painstaking work they have done. It really is painstaking. Some of it is mind-boggling. I have a few questions. I presume there will be a lot of crossover between the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, DMA, and our own online safety and media regulation Bill. How confident are the witnesses that the big platforms can be reined in? They spoke about a level playing field with small businesses. I looked up some of the figures. We are dealing with the likes of Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which have market values of $2.62 trillion, $937 billion, $1.93 trillion and $2.5 trillion, respectively. They are very powerful platforms. Will the regulation really get to them? These guys have super legal teams. What are the witnesses' views on that? Second, do we have a list of gatekeeper companies in Ireland? What is our definition of that? Third, Article 33 of the Digital Services Act is intended to grant researchers access to key data on the operations of the very large online platforms. Who are the researchers here? Do we know if this will be done country by country?

I am interested in hearing the witnesses' observations on the protection of whistleblowers. It is very important. The transparency of meetings with gatekeepers should be on show as well.