Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am genuinely very disappointed by that response. I am a former trade union official and the Minister of State has spent the last four minutes reciting the current employment law protections. Respectfully, I am aware of them. The problem is that the protections in place are not working in respect of these content moderators. There is no right to collective bargaining in this country, which undermines much of the collective protections that are currently in law.

Another line from the workers' letter that was published states:

The current crisis highlights that at the core of Facebook’s business lies a deep hypocrisy. By outsourcing our jobs, Facebook implies that the 35,000 of us [2,000 in Dublin] who work in moderation are somehow peripheral to social media. Yet we are so integral to Facebook’s viability that we must risk our lives to come into work.

The simple call of these workers is for the practice of outsourcing to be ended.

The Government needs to engage on this issue. What is happening in our city at the moment is nothing short of scandalous. I ask the Minister of State to at least give a commitment that the Government will immediately engage with Facebook, and bring in the company to ask it why it is outsourcing these positions. It is fundamentally wrong and it is immoral.