Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

While the Government likes to talk the talk about being modern, its response to this issue has proceeded at a snail's pace. I appreciate the Taoiseach's comments on Deputy James Lawless who has taken a leading role on this overall issue. However, the interdepartmental report includes nothing which could not have been put together over a couple of days by any of the many researchers and academics in our universities who specialise in online communications and security. It is a simple fact that aggressive campaigns of disinformation have become almost routine in European elections. What differs between countries is that some have adopted robust measures to identify and expose this activity. Everyone here has experienced online abuse and disinformation and, equally, we all know that one party in particular specialises in aggressive online attacks on opponents. In a public policy context, this disinformation is deeply sinister. For example, Russia Today has, for some reason, decided to promote anti-vaccine conspiracies which are being retweeted here with no official pushback. The issue is whether the Government is serious about doing something, or is this another process which will simply go nowhere? Can the Taoiseach tell the House what, if any, measures will be in place at the time of next May's local and European elections? Will he, at a minimum, ask Internet companies to provide basic transparency by identifying the source and financial scale of political advertising?

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