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

-----but, as we have learned from issues affecting Visa, Ulster Bank and other entities, those systems can also go horrendously wrong. It might be easier to hack an electoral register or even influence the result of an election if it was all held on a central database. We must consider all of these matters.

We are right to be concerned about external interference in elections.

It is now evident that there was external interference in the Brexit referendum and in elections in Ukraine and that there were at least attempts in France and Italy. We know that when it came to our referendum only a few weeks ago Facebook and Google decided in one case not to carry any advertisements related to that referendum at all and, in the other, not to allow any from overseas. I do not know why the companies did that but one can only assume that they may have seen something coming which caused them to act. In the run-up to the European Parliament elections next year I am concerned that if external actors wanted to influence our elections they would be interested in the European elections because those who do not like Europe, those who want Europe to be weak and those who do not share European values would like nothing more than a European Parliament full of nationalists, populists and extremists. We need to be wise to the fact that the European elections are not that far away and that there is a risk of foreign interference in those elections.

Foreign interference in elections is not new, nor is big money influencing politics in any way new. We know that in the 1950s and 1960s, both the CIA and KGB were involved in manipulating elections in a number of countries. We also know that big media owners in the UK, and in Ireland, have tried to use their influence on elections. The example that always stands out is the 1997 general election during which a particular newspaper put an editorial on its front page telling people to vote a certain way. There are many theories connected to that. The idea of big money or foreign governments and their agents influencing elections is not new but it is happening in a new way through the Internet.

I am not entirely sure what the solutions to it are but there may well be solutions. We should have the draft report from the group soon. I propose to share the report with the various parties and then try to map a way forward from there because I would be loath to have the Government amend electoral law. People would not trust it if it were just a Government proposal. It must be done on an all-party basis. The group is examining, in particular, the experience in EU members states and other countries. It is examining our electoral process and disinformation, and social media and cybersecurity. It is trying to examine how other countries have tried to deal with this threat to see what we can do.

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