Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Commissioner. His report was incredibly comprehensive and I do not think there was anything he left out. Ireland has a large degree of involvement in financial services and we have had the issue in relation to the Russian money that had, for the want of a better word, "washed" through here. The Commissioner would be reasonably happy that a significant amount of work has been done in regard to freezing that which should be frozen, namely, the €1.8 billion. The figure is so large because there was a considerable amount to be frozen. I can imagine that there are huge difficulties around freeze and seize from a legal standpoint. From what the Commissioner said in his initial statement and in his response, am I right in thinking that this could provide some of the funding in relation to reconstruction or otherwise when we are in a better situation? That is something that we cannot necessarily see a route map to at this point in time.

We have all heard anecdotally about what Deputy Richmond spoke about, namely, third countries. On some level we are dealing with business that has been done for a thousand years whereby one cannot deal directly with someone so they deal with the person beside them. I am still not quite sure what exactly can be done or should be done to deal with that.

We all welcome the work being done to ensure due diligence is done as regards investigations, so we will have the information necessary for the International Criminal Court, ICC, and whoever else. It is difficult to foresee where we will have major Russian players in the dock but we are all hopeful that we will eventually get to a better place.

On the matter of the rule of law, there was a certain element in Europe.

I will now move on to the rule of law issues. There was a certain feeling in Europe that we had our own issues as regards rule of law, particularly in Hungary and Poland. It had probably put a kibosh on any talk of accession, whereas with the war in Ukraine we all see the necessity of solidarity throughout Europe. There are all these geopolitical necessities and the Union is seen by many as a bastion against the anti-democratic forces that are out there. The fact remains that we still have these particular issues. Poland is a country that wants to be in the EU and that they will make technical arguments. I also say that it is vital that the EU has given itself the power of leverage through financial implications. Poland still sees itself as very much EU focused and may have these technical arguments but I think they will look for a solution. I am wondering what the lie of the land is on that. The question with Hungary is different. The EU and the Commission discovered ways and means of getting business done. It is a case of those that want to deal, deal with each other and that is it. There will always be difficulties in putting deals together.

There are certain rule of law implications across the board. If we are talking about Poland and Hungary, we have to talk about ourselves. We have this issue and there has been some discussion on it. It is the perception and sometimes also the reality of interaction between politics and big industry, lobbying and such that the rule of law does not apply. I am looking for the Commissioner's view on where they see the action that is being taken here. There are some actions, and I can make an argument from the opposition that I would like more done and we need to go further, but I recognise that the trajectory is generally positive. I would be interested in his view on that.

I do not think that anyone has a particular difficulty in dealing with anything that relates to courts services if there is a need for streamlining. There is a necessity in respect of defamation laws. Sometimes we can all play politics in relation to this stuff. People have taken cases on the basis that they were wronged and lies were told about them and that is why others lost cases. That is just the lie of the land. In fairness, for most people and most politicians, generally it is not the first port of call. In a lot of cases political parties do not want any involvement. It is individuals who make decisions. The law has to be there. I have no problem with streamlining it but we have a real conversation about it.

Ireland is a tech hub and we all know the issues we have regarding fraud and cybercrime by state actors and others at this point in time. We have particular issues with the tech industry and jobs at the moment but we still have to deal with the issues relating to social media. Whatever rules and regulations there are for journalists, there are none for social media platforms as publishers. In the past we have all probably dealt with people posting videos that have gone viral, where the information has not necessarily been correct or useful. We have all seen commentary that can get out of control. We have even seen where regular sounding people engage in questions but they can just go down rabbit holes. At times there are those that will use those occasions and those circumstances. Unfortunately, some social media platforms are almost set up and weaponised from that point of view. While we have to deal with the issue of social media platforms as publishers, we have to get down to the level on the types of algorithms that are in operation within them. Trying to put legislation and rules on technology is incredibly difficult but it is necessary. It also fits in to some of what has been said about GDPR. As well as being about regular best practice in protecting people's information, it is also about those pieces of information that may relate to their gender, sexual orientation and so on that should not be abused. We have all seen the issue and we have seen state actors that have operated brutal online campaigns, for example, in the case of Burma with the Rohingya. Beyond that, we have seen a lot of bad stuff that has happened internally. It is difficult to get to the bottom of that and it probably crosses over as well in relation to hate speech. I know that it is the longest question that anyone has ever asked in the history of asking questions.