Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)

As we know, the problem of disinformation is not a new one. What is new is how easily mistruths can be produced, how sophisticated and convincing they are, and how it can be amplified and circulated at astonishing speed.

According to the Digital News Report 2025 published just last month, 68% of people said that they are concerned about what is real and what is fake online. This is clear evidence of how important it is to counter disinformation.

The Future of Media Commission recognised this in its 2022 report and recommended that Ireland develop a national counter disinformation strategy to co-ordinate national efforts in the fight against disinformation, with the intention of limiting the creation and spreading of false, misleading and harmful material.

Disinformation is a serious challenge that requires whole-of-society response, the importance of which was recognised during the development of the national counter disinformation strategy. An independently chaired multistakeholder working group was established in February 2023 to develop the strategy and it was published on 17 April this year.

At national level, Ireland is already using a range of approaches to counter disinformation. The strategy aims to connect key stakeholders across multiple sectors, facilitating enhanced co-operation and collaboration in our efforts to counter disinformation. The strategy highlights education in particular as having an important role in giving people the skills to recognise false material and help to prevent its dissemination. Media and digital literacy initiatives should be seen alongside the promotion of public interest information in this regard. Crucially, the provision of media literacy education for everyone in our society will help to ensure that we are collectively resilient to the threats posed by this kind of manipulation to our democracy.

One such example is the Be Media Smart campaign led by Media Literacy Ireland, which encourages people to stop, think and check that the information they are consuming is reliable. The Sound and Vision 4 scheme is a notable source of funding for media literacy initiatives across television and radio. A total of €7 million has been awarded under the scheme so far this year for television and radio projects, with media literacy initiatives featuring amongst the funded projects. These range from documentaries about misinformation to local programming Irish-language programmes that set out to boost media literacy skills. Some notable examples include Beat 102-103 Digital Media and You; Virgin Media Television’s "Borders & Lies"; TG4’s "Am Abú"; and Newstalk’s "Ctrl Shift Save - Life in a Digital Age". Further funding awards under the Sound and Vision 4 scheme will be announced by Coimisiún na Meán in August 2025.

I look forward to seeing those projects that are to be awarded coming to fruition.

In addition, the programme for Government commits the Government to funding the strategy. The Department of Communications, Culture and Sport is developing proposals around this, including commitments in the strategy to media literacy as part of the Estimates process and subject to the availability of resources. While media literacy is a vital component in our fight to counter disinformation, it must be acknowledged that as a whole-of-government and whole-of-society challenge, there are other ways to counter disinformation. For example, enhanced regulation, which places obligations on online platforms to minimise the availability of harmful and illegal content, including disinformation, is highlighted in the strategy. Coimisiún na Meán is at the heart of Ireland's online safety framework. Comprising the Digital Services Act, the Online Safety Media Regulation Act and the terrorist content online content regulation, the online safety framework has an important part to play when it comes to countering disinformation.

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