Mr. Art O'Leary:

That just creates the challenge for us. We now know what we have to explain. With the use of video and all kinds of technology, we can explain to people how it is they should be voting and what they should be doing. That is important.

On misinformation, disinformation and political statements, I have spoken on this a couple of times today. It is trying to achieve this balance between allowing an election campaign to breathe and for people to express opinions and to get involved in healthy and robust debate. We do not want to have a chilling effect on debate where people are worried about the language they are using, etc. We have to allow a campaign to breathe. Also, however, we have to intervene where things are clearly wrong. On the basis of experience, we will finesse our plans in that regard but I am satisfied that we know where we are. How you define misinformation and disinformation is important. The difference between the two is intent. Someone spreading misinformation may be something they perhaps believe to be true and disinformation is where someone creates some content with the purpose of deceiving somebody or manipulating public opinion. What the two have in common is that they both cause public harm. That is the bar. If what someone is saying is causing public harm that it the bit where we must intervene, never mind whether there was intent. It is something we need to do.

As an elections nerd, I remember well "Vote Yes for Jobs" as an election slogan. Who knows how An Coimisiún Toghcháin would interpret that as part of its information today, but I can say that we take very seriously our obligation to provide factual information for somebody. If somebody asked "Is there anything in this proposal that means extra jobs for Ireland?" and it was perhaps not in the proposal, then we would probably put our hands up and say "No, not in the proposal". However, the political response to that might have been something around the EU's impression of us and our standing in Europe as well and that is where the goodwill leads to further investment in jobs, etc.