Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

All those present in the committee room are asked to exercise personal responsibility to protect themselves and others from the risk of contracting Covid-19. Members are required, as they well know, that if they wish to participate remotely, they must do so from within the Leinster House complex only. No apologies have been received as of yet.

Today, we are scheduled to discuss the pre-legislative scrutiny of the digital services Bill and I note that certain members wish to comment on that. The EU regulation, known as the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065), came into force in EU law on 16 November 2022 and will fully apply in member states from 17 February 2024. Ireland is obliged to designate and empower a competent authority known as the digital services co-ordinator to supervise and implement the Digital Services Act, DSA.

Having spoken to several members of the committee, I would like to hear from the officials why the Bill has been referred to this committee. The Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media has more experience and skills in this area and a better understanding of it. As such, it is probably better able to scrutinise the Bill. I invite any members who wish to comment to do so, after which the officials can explain why the Bill ended up with this committee and not with what I believe would be the more appropriate committee, namely, the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media.