Eoin Hayes (Dublin Bay South, Social Democrats)

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I am sorry that I did not make most of the meeting, unfortunately. I had to engage with the Taoiseach in the Chamber. I have a few questions. I hope I am not repeating myself. If I am, or if something has been covered previously, please let me know and feel free to skip over it.

It was stated that the era of self-regulation is over. That is something the Minister, Deputy Helen McEntee, also said in April 2025. I am very conscious that, pre Covid and pre major reductions in headcount of policy teams in technology companies that were monitoring the Internet and enforcing certain policies on their platforms, the headcounts of those policy teams were very high. One of the major things they did during the Covid reduction in forces they went through was a reduction in those policy teams. I would like to get a sense of this from the commission. How many people were employed in the policy teams, at their peak, of the big technology companies? How does that compare with the staffing in the commission's teams? How does it compare with EU-wide responsibilities, the hiring for languages and the use of tools to evaluate and monitor online content?