Mr. Barry Ryan:

Yes. There was also a question I did not get to which was asked by Senator Fitzpatrick earlier regarding Part 4 of the legislation, which was the Electoral Reform Act 2022. There are two main elements in respect of this area, one of which is Part 4 relating to the transparency of political advertising and giving a role to the Electoral Commission in this regard, and the other element is Part 5, which gave a role to the Electoral Commission in tackling misinformation, disinformation, and manipulative and inauthentic behaviour online during electoral events.

On the advertising piece we are making good progress in terms of the commencement of Part 4. The EU introduced a regulation, which is the EU regulation dealing with the targeting and transparency of political advertising. That was agreed at European level in March and has an 18-month implementation period. Now we are working towards bringing forward amendments to Part 4 that would bring us into line with the EU regulation, which will have effect.

In advance of all of that happening, measures are already in place specifically around transparency of advertising under the EU Digital Services Act, DSA, which came into force in February of this year. There are transparency requirements around advertising generally under the DSA and they apply to political advertising as much as any other advertising. Also at EU level there is the code of practice on disinformation that has been signed up to by 43 signatories, including all the major online platforms. That is also in place. The commission's own framework was put in place in advance of the European and local elections and this deals with transparency of advertising, among other things.

On Part 5, we were working with the European Commission to bring forward amendments, primarily to ensure this Part complies with Digital Services Act which has come into force since the Electoral Reform Act 2022. We were required to notify the proposed amendments to the European Commission and that was done in July. There is a standstill period, which, as I said in my opening statement, will expire on 4 October, which I think is next Friday week, to enable the Commission to make comments back on that. That is why that is there.