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

I thank the Deputies for raising those issues. In response to Deputy Paul Murphy, big tech companies meet Ministers regularly. They are responsible for thousands of jobs in the country, which should be acknowledged. I note the Deputy rarely acknowledges it in correspondence. That said, there must be meetings with such companies and they should be transparent. There is no issue, in my view, with meetings. They have to be. That is how I approach it. I do not know the full background to the circumstances there. As a Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, it would be natural and normal for Deputy Troy to meet companies. It would also be important in the context of the Digital Services Act because there are issues. Other countries have different agendas with regard to the legislation, but one of our concerns thematically would be that we do not believe in protectionism. I do not believe in the idea that there should be a fully Europeanised technology sector that must be discriminated in favour of through regulation or legislation against other sectors from different locations on the globe. I do not necessarily accept that. I am not saying that is going to be suggested, but we have a concern that laws can become protectionist whether by design or by accident. There are legitimate issues in that space that have to be discussed and understood in terms of the risk to employment here due to negative consequences that could arise from legislation.

The good story is that the European Union always works by consensus and will engage with every member state. We will make a contribution to that process. We will listen to stakeholders in that regard, especially the views of the country's citizens to protect people from a lot of what is happening online from many of the products of some of the companies, some of which have been injurious to people in terms of what is happening online generally and the negative use of algorithms. I would argue that the use of algorithms in the online platforms is the more substantive issue in terms of undermining the political system and political institutions. It has been the big transformational change in the past decade or two in respect of politics, how politics is commented on and how the narrative around politics develops.

Some of it can be useful and positive but much of it can be very negative. I am not just talking about the negative, hostile stuff and the hatred. Individuals are targeted online in a very hostile personalised way, the only objective of which is to undermine the individual. That is contributing to the undermining of individuals in politics and in positions of office. Much of it is not substantiated and when the algorithms come into play, we get the trending and all that. That is a risk.

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