Ms Celene Craig:

We have made submissions around this in the past. One reason we support a single media commission is the need to ensure that regulation across all sectors of the media needs to be knitted together and coherent. We have experience of overseeing regulation of political advertising or, rather, not having it, as the Senator pointed out, in broadcasting services. That has brought us into the area of having to make certain decisions over the years. We have been very actively involved in looking at political advertising in the online space as part of our work with the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services, ERGA, and in advising the European Commission in that regard. As a group of regulators, ERGA recently submitted a proposal to the Commission, which it is examining in the context of the European Media Freedom Act. There is potential for further European legislation on this.

I would make the point strongly that political advertising is not only relevant during an election period, whether it is for Oireachtas, local or European elections. There are issues around political advertising that need to be taken year round. We would welcome the opportunity to engage with the electoral commission and ensure the legislative objectives as they may be determined in Ireland are effective across the various strands of media in Ireland.