Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My issue is literally on promised legislation. Indeed, were the Ceann Comhairle to give an award for the most promised legislation, it would have to go to the parent and student charter Bill. It was announced in December 2016 and underwent committee scrutiny in 2017. The then Minister, Deputy Bruton, at the 2018 teacher conferences, promised online safety protections in the context of that Bill. As far as I know, though, the Bill still has not been written or presented to the Dáil. There has just been a draft. Last week, the same Minister made yet another promise regarding the online safety Bill. He said that he would write it, but it has not been written. When will we see these Bills and when will Fine Gael take the issue seriously?

Why was the announcement of the online safety Bill made this week? Was it connected to media queries from The Guardianand The Observernewspapers about Fine Gael lobbying on behalf of data and social media companies? Those queries would have been received last week. Is it the case that a decision was made to re-announce unwritten legislation relating to online safety in light of that publicity at the weekend?

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