Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not in a position to advise the Deputy on what questions he should ask Facebook. He is intelligent enough to develop his own questions. In terms of legislation and regulations, he should be aware that the Government is bringing through legislation on data protection. The GDPR legislation is far reaching and deals very much with privacy and data protection issues. It is real action by the Government and real legislation of the kind that was not brought forward when the Deputy held office for four and a half years.

On funding media organisations, as the Deputy knows, there is some State funding for media organisations through television licence fee income which, in the main, goes to RTÉ and also to the broadcasting fund. Beyond that, media organisations are private businesses, independent of the Government, and funded by their customers. If Facebook, Google, newspapers or radio stations make money, it is because they are providing content or doing things their customers want.

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