Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. O'Leary for his presentation and welcome the establishment of the Electoral Commission. I will focus on disinformation, particularly who is doing what. It seems that a number of pieces of legislation are relevant to disinformation. I refer, for example, to the legislation that established the Electoral Commission, the Digital Services Act based on the EU Digital Services Act, and the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act. Arising from all that legislation, we have Coimisiún na Meán, an online safety commissioner and a data protection commissioner so a lot of people seem to be in this space. Could Mr. O'Leary tell me who is doing what? I looked up the Digital Services Act. It says that it marks a sea change in the EU's ability to protect society from illegal harmful online content and disinformation. We enacted the EU Digital Services Act. That seems to be really relevant to what we are talking about. Could Mr. O'Leary provide clarity about who is doing what in this space? Presumably he is aware of who else is trying to something about disinformation.

The second question relates to ballot papers for the referendums. We have heard complaints previously that ballot papers are not very user-friendly - the fógra syndrome. Particularly with two referendums, ballot papers need to be very user-friendly, and possibly not as technical, so people know exactly what they are voting for. Obviously they must be technical because it is a legal matter but if there was some sort of heading or something could be done with the colour of ballot papers, it could help. I am sure the colour of ballot papers has been dealt with. I guess the ballot papers are probably printed at this stage but anything Mr. O'Leary could say about them would be helpful.

The third question concerns the electoral register. Mr. O'Leary mentioned it in his last contribution. We heard Joe Duffy on his show. He is going to be swinging for somebody. I suspect it is Mr. O'Leary, but I am not sure.