Ms Julie de Bailliencourt:

Yes, absolutely. Our teams continually examine the numbers of reports that remain for review and the topics involved. There might be a sports event, for instance, that might lead to an increase in the number of reports; therefore, they will monitor whether there are events that are driving up or down the numbers of reports. We constantly make sure we have the correct number of staff examining and reviewing content and taking action. It is not based on people but the time spent in dealing with the matter.

I am glad that the Deputy brought up the matter of Facebook live. The announcement Mark Zuckerberg made in May was also related to Facebook live. It is a fantastic tool which, as the Deputy noted, is used by politicians and musicians, but we have seen instances where people have used it in very distressing situations. We have adapted our tool on suicide prevention to address the challenge presented by Facebook live. We have worked with global experts such as Dr. Dan Reidenberg in the United States to work out how to provide support for people who may be in distress and broadcasting live, with the individual's friends and family. My view on the matter was changed by his observation that as long as the person concerned was broadcasting, there was a chance of rescuing him or her since the Garda, friends and family had a chance to intervene by making their way to his or her place. We have adapted many of our tools to fit Facebook live. There are also reviewers who monitor Facebook live content that might become viral or gather many views. It is correct that we rely on reports, but many of the tools, particularly on suicide prevention, allow us to get within minutes to potential, credible videos such as the one mentioned by the Deputy.

The Deputy may have read an article posted in the United States in recent days which highlights our commitment to using artificial intelligence to help us to understand where we can take additional steps. We are in the early stages of considering what the technology can do, but combining the investment in technology and in people - we are talking about substantial investment in tens of thousands of people - will allow us to stay on top of these issues.

We retain media and have procedures, depending on the content involved. If, for instance, the police contact us in the context of a criminal investigation, we have specific retention policies for such cases. It is not the case that the content which is no longer available on Facebook is not available to the Garda, if it wants it. That happens in cases where Facebook has removed content after judging it to be abusive, but different policies apply where someone deletes a photograph because he or she did not want it on Facebook. In that case, the content is gone.

Ms Cummiskey explained very well our policy on fight videos. From my side of the house, we sometimes see young people sharing content or videos that they have recorded to raise awareness of practices in an establishment or another location in the world or to highlight a problem. Facebook is trying to balance, for instance, pages dedicated to the sharing of fight videos for the purpose of bullying with children who may wish to draw attention to an issue. On removing or deleting material, we have an additional mechanism to prevent young people from seeing very distressing content while still allowing adults to share it to raise awareness. For instance, we have a number of graphic warnings for specific types of shocking content. If we apply this graphic warning, the content is rendered invisible to young people.