Results 2,841-2,860 of 8,196 for speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I will come to this issue in amendment No. 185.

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It is the same suite of issues.

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Amendment No. 185 concerns "encryption backdoors" or "scanning” and so on. I suggest that we put in the appropriate language of necessity and proportionality to ensure that we do not inadvertently create a context whereby this clause on safety codes could be part of inappropriately wide surveillance.

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I disagree. I am not saying that an coimisiúin needs to do the investigations or prosecutions; I am saying that in providing codes, for example, it should not provide that regulation allows for large-scale scanning. That is why the necessity and proportionality part is appropriate because the coimisiún puts in the online safety code and then later very considerable powers are...

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 185: In page 84, between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following: “(5A) An online safety code as defined in subsection (5) in respect of an interpersonal communications service or a private online storage service shall prohibit the use of encryption backdoors or client-side scanning.”. The amendment concerns a similar and related issue relating to an...

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I accept the point made by the Minister. There are situations where it may be allowed but there are also situations that the amendment tries to address, which is around, for example, State access to encryption backdoors. The Minister gave the example of videoconferencing and that is an example of how we are straying into the area of the digital services directive. Is videoconferencing...

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I wish to withdraw the amendment but hope to table an amendment to address the issue.

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 186: In page 84, between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following: “(5A) Services defined under subsection (5) shall not be deemed to be designated online services until such date as set by the Minister following the transposition into Irish law of the European Digital Services Act.”. The amendment deals with the same issue. It is probably one of the...

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I thank the Minister for indicating that she will reflect. This amendment might allow us to proceed in terms of the delivery of the audiovisual media services directive, which everybody wants to do, and would give the scaffolding required by the Minister. It would, perhaps, allow us to avoid an unfortunate and unintended situation whereby we may have an online safety code that ends up being...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I thank the witnesses for attending. There are lots of questions that I want to ask. It is very hard to decide where to go. In terms of the future, there seems to be a mandate for change. We heard from people who have been involved in the assembly that the citizens were really open to a reimagining of care. They were open not just to investing more in care, but doing it very differently....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Yes. I have just a couple. I wish to pick up on where the conversation left off. If any of the witnesses have further thoughts on the Constitution element, we would be very interested in hearing them. We have examined the constitutional issues a lot from a legal perspective but, of course, they have significant implications for social policy, legislation and the kinds of measures put in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (26 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I have one supplementary question which I forgot to mention when talking about the cost of care. I used to sit on the Joint Committee on Disability Matters and it was a long battle to get that cost of disability report by Indecon published. It is being looked at now with regard to those invisible costs that get carried by people who have a disability. It might be interesting for us to get...

Seanad: Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill 2022: Second Stage (25 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: As the Minister of State outlined, the context of this legislation is the transposition of the EU whistleblower directive and the amendment of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014. There are many positive elements within this legislation but there are also concerns. Given that we are entering the period of legislative scrutiny, I will highlight some of the concerns. I know Transparency...

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I want to follow up on something. I think Senator Sherlock mentioned it. There is a little bit of a red herring at play in some of the responses we have been having in this debate with this reference to the EU regulations. Regulation (EU) 2016/127, which supplements Regulation (EU) No 609/2013, relates to the compositional and information requirements for information on infant formula and...

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: The Minister seems to have indicated that on the section dealing with media codes she will consider naming breast milk substitutes, formula milk and follow-on milk which would be good. If fat, trans fats, salt and sugars are named, it would be consistent. Formula milk and breast milk substitutes clearly meet the criterion of things that have a general public health interest for children....

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: The Minister mentioned that the commission will take on board legislation. However, this is legislation. We want this to become some of the legislation the commission takes on board rather than the alcohol Act that was not designed for the online space as we have outlined, and indeed other provisions such as the EU directive which do not address this issue of online marketing. While...

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It was in the very first debate.

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 106: In page 51, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following: “(c) seeks to promote or advertise practices or beliefs which seek to compromise or invalidate a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including the advertisement or promotion of conversion therapy in respect of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” .

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Votáil.

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I will briefly respond because this was my amendment. I appreciate and accept the bona fides of the Minister. I understand that she intends to address this issue but it would be good if the Government brought its own proposals in respect of it . It is the right of any Member of this House to bring amendments on this. There is a general strong view, shared across the House by both...