Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are parts of the Digital Services Bill I would support but I will not be supporting the main part of it. It has serious consequences for many people. We have talked about different areas, from hate speech to freedom of debate in this Dáil and throughout the country. It is hugely important. There is a huge difference between freedom of debate and people inciting hatred. Sadly, in this country, quite a lot of people have got away with inciting hatred and this has led to serious consequences. That is through media outlets no matter where they came from but it can be tackled.

During the rioting in Dublin two weeks ago, sadly, gardaí were treated scandalously by certain individuals, including kicking them and holding cameras up to their faces as if to say, "We can do what we like to you but you cannot touch us." That is a sad society and a road we should never have travelled. Video images came from a phone. They were put up on the some social media platform, and surely be to God there is already a law of the land whereby we can clamp down on that nonsensical carry-on and punish the people who do that. It all comes down to the sentencing of these criminals and the people who carry out these acts. The sentences are too light. If these people were caught and dealt with properly, I can assure the Minister of State that we would have a very different country.

When talking of social media and freedom of speech, politicians have a lot to answer for. It does not matter if a person is accused of being far right or far left, politicians are politicians regardless. They are public servants and, as we saw last night, some of them are deciding that, if somebody goes to meet an ambassador, it is a bad thing to do, even though the same ambassador is representing a country that provides tens of thousands of jobs in this country. I know myself from the case of Apple and several others in Cork that this ambassador helps to create tens of thousands of jobs through tourism when people from their country come to visit our country. Then a TD decides, in his wisdom, that he can name and take pictures of people going in and out and put them up on his social media feed. It is scandalous that he does not put up any pictures of what he was doing to a Minister a few years ago. Has he forgotten that? Ireland has not forgotten that. I have not forgotten it. People sent me images of it today just as a reminder. I am not going to waste my time at that kind of nonsense and carry-on. It just tells us something. After the violence we have had, this is absolutely scandalous. There is also a Labour Party TD who actually has incitement to hatred on his media feed by stating it was the Rural Independent Group Members who were the cause of the burning down of Dublin city that day. It was an astonishing statement, from any TD on his or her social media feed. The Garda should intervene there. We should not be intervening. It is the Garda that should intervene in issues like this when immature politicians carry out all sorts of crazy things.

We all use social media. It is our only means of getting our message out there, but it might be a general attack about a certain topic on agriculture, for example. We do not personalise it. It is not personal finger-pointing and it is not putting up something on social media to incite hatred. This, however, is what we have. These politicians will come in and support this Bill, of course, but perhaps when they go outside the door they should look at themselves and at the scandalous way they carry on. This is not being far left or far right. It is just irresponsible, immature politicians who do not know how to carry out their job. That is basically what we are talking about here.

I hope in the Digital Services Bill we would look at areas like local radio stations, for example. They do give people an excellent opportunity to speak. Radio stations such as C103 FM, Red FM, and 96 FM in Cork, with Patricia Messinger, JohnPaul McNamara, John Greene, and Neil Prendeville. We are lucky to have them because they give a balanced debate. You do not always get what you want to hear but there is a balanced debate and opportunity for people to speak. We need to continue that. My worry is that if we insert the words "hate speech" and if we bring forward legislation in the House on hate speech, we are certainly going down a very dangerous road. People's rights to freedom of speech for genuine reasons will be prohibited to them.

I am aware there are a lot of issues with young people using mobile phones. We all have concerns about that. I urge parents to get those young people's heads out of the phones and get them walking the streets in some safety. That is not there at present.

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