Mr. Ciarán Shanley:

Yes, if there is a breach of their obligations under the online safety codes, the commission can appoint an authorised officer to investigate the suspected breach. Those officers have significant powers, including the power to seek search warrants and the power to take information under oath from individuals. The authorised officer then reports to the commission and the commission considers whether on balance it believes a breach has occurred. If it believes a breach has occurred, it can pursue the imposition of a financial sanction of up to €20 million or 10% of turnover. On top of that, if it believes the breach continues to occur after that, it can issue a notice to end the breach. If the breach still occurs, it can pursue criminal sanctions against senior executives of the platform and can seek court orders to block access to the platform. It is a graduated approach which can potentially reach fairly high financial sanctions. If the same breach continues, it can reach the point where the service is blocked. That is a very blunt instrument, but when that stage is reached the platform will have been wilfully non-compliant for a long time.