Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for coming in. I have a couple of questions. Mr. O’Leary finished off a moment ago by saying An Coimisiún Toghcháin has responsibility for the oversight and update of the election register, which is welcome. It is an important document from our perspective. I know from my own constituency, and I am sure it is replicated other places, that it is a document full of duplications, full of the names of people who are dead and it badly needs to be updated and reformed. Is there a timeframe as to when that programme of work will be completed? Will the electoral register for Longford-Westmeath correlate with Meath West and every other constituency so people will in be registered in one constituency but will not be duplicates in numerous constituencies? Obviously, An Coimisiún Toghcháin has a facility - not that it would be advocating this. There is the old saying “vote early and vote often”. People could vote in multiple constituencies if the electoral registers were not aligned. Perhaps Mr. O’Leary can clarify that.

I am interested to hear Mr. O’Leary is happy with his engagement with the social media companies considering that our own Minister, Deputy Foley, was not so happy with her engagement a number of weeks ago on age verification, which is important in respect of the harmful abuse of minors on social media. What was so positive with his engagement? What did they commit to do in respect of the period running up to an election? Did they commit to taking down misinformation, disinformation and untruths in a fast manner? Did they give a timeline of when they would turn around and answer a complaint? Certainly, experience to date would lead you to believe you could report tweets or misinformation and, in certain instances, even though it is a blatant untruth or blatant harmful message, they may not act in a timely fashion. I would be interested to hear what precise commitment they gave to Mr. O’Leary.

Finally, I refer to - how would you say it – reputable media outlets. We seem to be focusing much on what people who are not from reputable outlets might say and disinformation on social media platforms. However, reputable journalists get it wrong too and reputable journalists can quite often use their privileged position to sway an argument in a particular way, despite the fact they are meant to be independent in their role and responsibilities. I am interested to hear how An Coimisiún Toghcháin would deal with a reputable organisation. We are sick listening to RTÉ and how it has tarnished its own reputation in the past period of time - and I wish to point out that is not the journalists. However, there are situations where journalists take it upon themselves to put their side of the story out knowing quite well that it is misleading.

How would the commission deal with a situation like that?