Ms Sabha Greene:

The main reason that this Bill is with our Department and the Minister has, therefore, submitted scrutiny of it to this committee is that this Department negotiated the Digital Services Act. EU regulations are now called Acts, which is confusing. The Digital Services Act is an update of the e-commerce directive of 2000, which is under the remit of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The Act, when it was originally proposed by the European Commission in, I believe, 2020 was part of a package, a two-hander, with the Digital Markets Act. The Digital Markets Act is very akin to competition law and the two Acts must be read together because they affect very similar entities. The Digital Services Act also contains some consumer protection elements, which is another reason it is within our Minister's remit.

The scheme only implements the regulatory framework. It does not deal with the substance of obligations on the technology companies so it does not deal with the substance of online safety. It just assigns additional functions to the Media Commission, which already has a role in online safety. I will set out the reason these are assigned to the Media Commission and not a body under the aegis of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

We conducted a regulatory impact assessment in January of last year. We looked at the code that is being introduced under the online safety legislation, which the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media brought through the Houses. There are similarities and there is obviously a great similarity in the companies that are being regulated by both codes. The two codes have very similar objectives, which is to improve online safety while respecting freedom of expression, so it made sense that one regulatory body would implement both. That said, some elements of the Digital Services Act, DSA, as the Deputy may have seen in the appendix to the scheme, are going to be assigned elsewhere. Since the scheme was agreed, it has been decided that a few of the responsibilities will go to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, namely, those related to the online marketplaces.

That is the history of the proposal. We negotiated it. It arises from the e-commerce directive and updates the e-commerce directive regime. What we are doing now is entirely confined to ensuring that the regulator can impose fines and will put in place procedures to implement the Digital Services Act. It is not concerned with the substance of online safety.