Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Taoiseach and thank him for his time and his engagement here today.

In the Seanad we are currently assessing and going through the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022. We spent another three hours last night in the Chamber going through some 200 amendments on this Bill. It is extremely important legislation - probably one of the most significant in a generation - because we will regulate an unregulated sphere. At present, it is the wild west.

The Taoiseach spoke earlier about a free and independent media and he was quite right. As a former journalist, it worries me that so many of our citizens now rely on social media as their news outlet. The Taoiseach referred to a free media. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as free news. It costs a great deal of money to produce news content. I fear for that industry. That is why I welcome the Taoiseach's commitment that the future of media report will be published soon. As matters stand, the funding model or business model is broken and we need to talk seriously about how that will be fixed.

Returning to the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022, the main thrust of what the Bill would achieve, of course, is the establishment of a media commission and the establishment of an online safety commissioner, for which there is a pressing need. I cannot stress enough the need for this because of the amount of online abuse and online hate. Yesterday, we were discussing abuse in sport with the CEO of the Federation of Irish Sport, Mary O'Connor, herself a much decorated sportsperson. We asked Ms O'Connor directly, in terms of abuse, were the social media giants doing enough to stamp out abuse and she said categorically, "No." Ms O'Connor spoke specifically about the impact it was having on young female athletes - body shaming - and the impact on them leaving sport as a result. These are the consequences of an unregulated sphere in social media. These are the devastating impacts on young girls.

The special rapporteur, Professor Conor O'Mahony, came before us at the committee. Professor O'Mahony spelled out frankly for us that we need to intervene and that it is having a devastating impact in the area of online abuse. In the area of the proliferation of gambling, massive giants make multibillion euro profits. Senator Malcolm Byrne and I have tabled a number of amendments, including one that would make directors of these companies personally criminally liable. When that was published and when the media covered it, why was there a circling of the wagons by these companies? They have no fear of fines. The proposed fines in the legislation are a pittance to these guys. Facebook Ireland makes €40 billion in revenue in this country alone.

The money generated in shiny glass offices in the docklands cannot be a shield against proper accountability and proper scrutiny. As Ms Mary O'Connor said yesterday, not enough is being done to protect young female athletes in this country. We need to protect them. Those shiny glass offices can be shattered and I have plenty of rocks. I praise the Government and the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Martin, for bringing this legislation forward, as it will be the first time we will tackle this issue, but it needs to be strong enough so these guys have respect for this State and its laws and the young people of this country, in particular, are protected.