Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 14 July 2021

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media

General Scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. John O'Driscoll:

Again, this is an area where international co-operation is important also. I have sat at meetings at an EU level where these issues have been discussed. There is an approach across the EU to our engagement with private industry but at a local and national level we also engage with relevant stakeholders. As time moves on those relationships are improving. We have memorandums of understanding, MOUs, signed with particular private entities in relation to tackling particular forms of crime, particularly the child imagery issues. This is the way forward. We must engage with our stakeholders in a meaningful way. As I said, while we will do that to the extent we can at a national level it does need the international law enforcement community and the institutions of the EU, among others, to ensure all those stakeholders play their part in tackling the criminality involved.