Mr. Peter Feeney:

It is important the new online safety commissioner has the powers to investigate and the powers to impose sanctions if he or she finds standards have not been met. It would be quite easy to put in place a commission that does not have the resources and the teeth. Very quickly, public confidence would be diminished. This will be a real challenge for the Government to put in place a commission which can deliver safer social media and which at the same time protects freedom of expression and the right to express your views, but forces companies to take down harmful material effectively, quickly and honestly.

The jury has to be out on how difficult that legislation will be and how well social media companies will react to it but it is critical they should not be left off the hook. There are positive signs. You get the head of Facebook saying that he welcomes regulation because they cannot do it on their own. That is a recognition that algorithms and fellows paid €15 an hour to be fact-checkers cannot do the job. It demands expertise, experience and structures. I hope the new online safety commission has those powers and has the resources to be able to do that.

Ireland will be a model for other European countries if we do that because we are well ahead of most other European countries in terms of even thinking about these issues. I hope the European Commission works on this too because we are talking about multinationals with significant resources. The Irish proposal to introduce this safety regulator - there are similar proposals in Britain - is important and I would welcome it in every way possible.