Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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Prior to my nomination to the Seanad, I have been a lawyer in digital privacy and employment law. I have read all the books on Cambridge Analytica, Brexit and the 2016 American election. It is alleged in the findings of the US Congress that $150,000 was all the Russians needed to spend to influence the use of social media, such is the manner of their dissemination and repetition.

I view the issue before us bearing in mind the possibility that one person's misinformation and disinformation can be created and disseminated in this way.

I take everyone's points on language and on being very careful about language. I stood up against it on "The Tonight Show" a number of weeks ago. People came down on me like a tonne of bricks for saying that some of the language being used was appalling and that we needed to be very sensitive about it. I am also sensitive to the fact that media tend to publicise whatever is dramatic or attention-seeking. The money that goes into community organisations, the billions that are spent by the Government, never gets the traction. I find myself in meetings with people who are funded by Government to act in communities and while there is austerity, we tend to forget about that. There is a whole language that is also feeding a class war that plays a part in this. I am noting that rather than anything else in the tabloid media. The whole movement online has caused real issues in trying to run elections, for Government to communicate, in trying to keep balance in people's lives, in people's information and flow of information. People do not read newspapers as they did.

The Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, this week talked about a multi-stakeholder working group to counter disinformation and a strategy on that. What would the witnesses like to see that do and who should be on it?