Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Reilly for her clarification and all Deputies for their contributions, which were constructive and, at times, eclectic. I acknowledge the contributions of Deputies Fitzpatrick, Nash and Ó Murchú on PayPal. Our thoughts are with the PayPal workers. I hear their concerns. The Minister, Deputy Peter Burke, shares those concerns and we will reflect them to the Department and engage with Oireachtas representatives from Louth around that.

I will come back to the Deputy's offices on that.

As we said at the beginning the purpose of the Digital Services (Levy) Bill 2024 is to provide the legal basis for Coimisiún na Meán and the CCPC to charge a levy to fund their additional regulatory functions. It does this by amending the Broadcasting Act 2009, as amended, to extend the list of Coimisiún na Meán's leviable entities, and by amending the Digital Services Act 2024 to provide for the same levy raising power to the CCPC, for those providers, under its competence.

I will go through a number of issues that were raised. If I miss any, I will communicate directly. I thank all Deputies for their support. In regard to clarity about providers, this is set out in the digital services regulation. As also set out by Deputy O'Reilly, it includes hosting sites, social media sites, search engines and indeed online marketplaces. In essence, all online intermediaries offering the services in the Single Market established in this country, may be subject to a levy.

I agree with Deputy Ó Murchú's assertion that Coimisiún na Meán has an important job in regulating online platforms. Coimisiún na Meán will aim to prevent illegal and harmful activities online and to address the speed of disinformation as seen across the larger platforms, that has such extensive reach and influence. When it comes to systematic risks such as disinformation, hoaxes, harms to vulnerable groups and other emerging societal harms, the digital services regulations regulate very large online platforms, VLOPs, and indeed search engines. It is a requirement for those to analyse the specific risks and put in place mitigation measures. This includes addressing the seeds of disinformation, the spread of disinformation on the inauthentic use of their services.

Deputy Nash raised the issue about the EU Commission charging a supervisory fee on VLOPs. That fee is taken into consideration in this Bill. However, while the Commission has responsibility for enforcing the regulation of VLOPs, it does not do this alone or without the involvement of the digital services commission, DSC, of the country of establishment. Our commission is particularly important here, as I said, with 15 of the 24 very large online platforms based here.

In regard to Deputy Crowe's comments about electoral integrity, was it Mr. Baker?

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