Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)

This morning I hosted a briefing with Uplift, ICCL and the Hope and Courage Collective. We talked about the dangers we all face online, including the security risks, the threats to democracy and the threats to our children, all posed by the lack of regulation of social media giants. We do not enforce the laws that we have. We were told by experts this morning that the perception internationally is that Ireland is not taking its responsibility seriously. We also heard about solutions, namely, making sure that recommender algorithms are turned off by default, so that people can choose what they are seeing online. We are pushing for this protection to be included in the EU democracy shield, which is currently on the desk of our own Irish Commissioner, Michael McGrath, and crucially enforcing the data protection laws that we have and making the Data Protection Commission fit for purpose. I would argue that the issue raised by Deputy Farrell and that features in The Irish Times today is exactly the kind of issue that will dealt with by this. Will this Government take action on these solutions to protect us and all of our children from online harm?

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