Mr. Art O'Leary:

It may be, but we have to learn the lessons at some point. There has been no real evidence of misinformation and disinformation by malign actors in Irish elections so far. We cannot be complacent, however. We have to be prepared for it. It may be, based on hard, bitter experience, that we will have to learn some hard lessons. We have to be grown up enough to be able to learn those lessons and fix the issue to ensure that it will never happen again. Let us see. The Deputy is right. It is something that needs to be taken seriously. We need to impress on all the stakeholders, not just social media companies, and maybe this strays into the "reputable journalists" area as well, that all media organisations have an obligation to present information in a fair and impartial way. When something is presented as comment, it should be labelled as comment or opinion. Newspapers are full of people with opinions on an issue, and with a view, saying what they think about an issue, which also helps the education of people.

We are back again to the issue I mentioned at the outset and a couple of times since, namely, trying to find that balance between freedom of expression and the right of people to trust the information they are being told. In the same way we are politically blind, we are also media blind. We do not have a list of reputable and disreputable journalists or reputable and disreputable organisations. There are just media organisations and online content. We look at all of it in a way that makes sure it is fair to everybody involved.