Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)

I thank the Minister of State for addressing the various clauses in the statutory instrument. I want to focus on three issues in response, the first of which is cost. The Minister of State stated repeatedly the protections exist in European law. There is a sense this statutory instrument is somewhat vague but the Minister of State has stressed judges will look to European law. He gave the example of www.boards.ie, which employs two people full time on take-down notices and takes this stuff very seriously. The view of the team of www.boards.ie is this will force legal costs upon them which will probably force them to shut down. It is the biggest online community in Ireland, with over 2 million unique Irish users. Every time they have to go to court they believe it will cost them about €35,000. They can do that a very small number of times and most of their smaller equivalents cannot do that at all.

Our proposed additional clauses to the statutory instrument would bring the European protections into Irish law. Rather than a judge ruling on the basis of Irish law, and www.boards.ie possibly being informed an injunction had been taken and some ISPs were blocking access to www.boards.ie, and www.boards.ie having to spend upwards of €35,000 getting a new ruling citing European law, through the clauses in the statutory instrument we are bringing that into Irish law. Therefore, by the Minister's own logic, nothing has changed in terms of the additional clauses we have added, but they would give an awful lot of comfort to the people to whom we have spoken.

The Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland, a reputable group which includes Google, said the wording of the statutory instrument as published was "vague and overly broad. It creates further business uncertainty for those running or considering establishing Internet services in Ireland". That is a fairly strong position.

We accept the Minister of State is not doing the bidding of big business. However, it is interesting to note the owners of copyright have stated publically they are very happy with the proposed statutory instrument while the intermediaries have stated publically they are deeply unhappy, and the largest Irish online community has stated that this will force it out of business.

In terms of finding balance, if one side is delighted with it and the other side is horrified by it, and they are all legitimate, it suggests the current statutory instrument does not have that balance. We have added the additional clauses to strike that balance. I encourage the Minister to examine them and commit to the House this evening that he will give a detailed response and provide time and a timeframe to debate the clauses for the reasons I have laid out.

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