Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for being here to talk about this issue. We had a really interesting debate last week on the same topic, so this follows on very well. We all know we have a problem with misinformation and disinformation and we are not quite sure how to address it. There is, as Dr. Culloty put it, no panacea or one easy option. I was quite struck by what she said about there being no consistent monitoring of disinformation in terms of asking if it is increasing for a particular topic or increasing in the targeting of certain politicians. Do the witnesses have any suggestions as to how that should be done, who should do it or who should be responsible for it? That would be a good place to start.

It is great to see that EMI is doing a project on misinformation and disinformation. EMI has been on the scene a long time on European issues and has seen many European elections over the years. As regards that building of resilience, if EMI is doing a project, what should the Government be doing, maybe on a larger scale? There is a limit to what any one organisation can do. As regards the best way to tackle this, and notwithstanding our engagements with social media companies, which, certainly from my perspective, are not doing anywhere near enough and could be doing a lot more, they will always say they are waiting for regulations and laws but they do not need to do that to do the right thing. What can we do to educate and equip people to be more media-literate and more resilient? I think that will be our greatest tool in dealing with this.