Mr. Rory Harte:

The Senator's question is a very good one. From our perspective, what Ireland does very well compared with other EU member states is that, with regard to disinformation, misinformation and broader supports for media literacy, we have a far more joined-up network of organisations working in this area. At governmental level, there is everyone from the Department of media to the Department of Foreign Affairs. There is not only Coimisiún na Meán and the Electoral Commission but also industry working very heavily and academia working very heavily, whether it is the future of journalism school or the ADAPT centre in UCD, as well as civil society, like us. Everyone brings something specific to the table.

This is about supporting those networks and, for instance, civil society so that we can be part of the conversation and supporting academia so that there are fully funded roles that allow academics to dig into the research. That is one part of it.

The next part is the joined-up policy thinking, at which Ireland is doing quite well at the moment. There is EU-level stuff such as the Digital Services Act coming down the line. There is Irish-level legislation but there is other stuff that could be there. Dr. Culloty mentioned approaches like the Finnish model. Exploring those different policy ways forward is a bit that we might miss in the future.

Senator Chambers asked about monitoring material as it appears and the ebbs and flows of the disinformation that is out there. I referred to the ADAPT Centre in UCD. Lots of research is being done by academics working in that area. It is quite a nuanced technical field that I cannot speak to but there are people very much working on it at the moment. Fingers crossed, that will produce helpful results.