Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 September 2025

Committee on European Union Affairs

Engagement with Coimisiún na Meán

2:00 am

Mr. Tiernan Kenny:

This goes back to what Dr. Evans was saying about the balance between freedom of expression and ensuring people's safety online. You would have to recognise that there is a lot of behaviour and content online that you would not necessarily condone or could not endorse, but if it stops short of being illegal, the methods to address it are a bit different. Again, as Dr. Evans said, you could be looking at the Digital Services Act in terms of the risk assessment and mitigation there if you felt that the presence of this type of content, allied to how the service was designed or could be used by people, was leading to systemic risks in the area of safe public health. If you talk to some of the public health bodies, they will tell you some fairly damning stories about some of the people who access their services as a result of activities they have engaged in with other people.

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