Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Private Members' Bill. There has been significant evidence that third parties, possibly including nation states, have sought to use a number of means to affect the outcomes of elections. This has been well mooted in recent times. These means include targeted online advertising and the use of social media to manipulate the views of small but significant components of the electorate. I note the Private Members' Bill seeks to redress some of these issues both by requiring all online advertising directed towards a political end to carry a transparency notice and by prohibiting the use of bots to create multiple social media accounts. I have a few concerns in this regard.

The first concerns the timeline surrounding the Bill. I think it was on 10 November that there was a press release announcing the Bill, yet it was not published until Wednesday of last week. It is very important, under the new reforms we have in the Oireachtas, that we scrutinise legislation at draft stage to ensure it does not have any unintended consequences. It is very important that we have moved on from the guillotine and various other such mechanisms through the Oireachtas. We now need to be careful to ensure that legislation is subject to proper and appropriate scrutiny from experts. I have a number of concerns as to what consultation was engaged in prior to the publication of the Bill. Was formal feedback sought from any social media companies as to how to regulate the proposed provisions and how they might be policed and managed? Was formal feedback sought from any civil society organisations that could be impacted by the legislation? Was any formal feedback on the Bill sought from any public representatives from Deputy Lawless's party? Was there external legal advice on the Bill and, if so, from whom? It has only been a month, I think, since the Bill was announced and the press release published, as I mentioned, and I cannot see the rush in this regard. The legislation could have a number of unintended consequences and could be described as legislation by press release.

I have a major concern about political advertising and the effects it may have on a public representative in his or her own right. Would the Bill make it illegal to advertise a Deputy's clinics online? There is a huge subjective element to the Bill regarding the definition of "political end", which needs to be fleshed out. Section 6 of the Bill proposes to create an offence of using a bot, in this case a piece of software, as previous speakers have illustrated well, used to create multiple accounts on social media platforms. While there are a number of political and factual issues with the definitions relating to this section alone, particularly pertinent are the difficulties associated with implementing the section. Identifying the owners of some social media accounts is often very difficult and in many cases both the platform and the individual will be outside of the State. We therefore need much more scrutiny, the best possible scrutiny, of the mechanics and logistics of how the legislation would work. I am concerned about the unintended consequences. I note concerns that have been raised about political advertising, but legislation should not be rushed and the Bill leaves one totally in the dark as to what consultation has taken place on this drafted legislation, which is a huge concern.

I do not agree that this is an emergency situation requiring emergency action. We should afford interested stakeholders time to consider the Bill in detail and identify any flaws it may contain. Effective scrutiny is a critical part of the process of producing good legislation in this House.

On the question of nation states interfering in elections, we must ensure social media outlets are precluded from hosting that type of activity. Several Members have brought forward proposals recently seeking to make it a criminal offence to engage in discussion about criminal trials on Facebook and other platforms. We must examine all of these issues carefully and ensure that any legislation we enact does not have unintended negative consequences for the public or for us as politicians in the carrying out of our duties.

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