Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I endorse the remarks of my colleague, Senator Warfield, in response to comments made by Senator Keogan last week. I happen to know the work that BeLonG To, ShoutOut, Transgender Equality Network Ireland, TENI, and the INTO LGBT+ Teachers Group happen to do. They provide confidence to young people when they are often at a particularly vulnerable stage in their lives. Their motivation is not political. Their motivation is purely about giving young people certainty, often at a very vulnerable stage. It is important to acknowledge that work in this House. We have made enormous advances in tackling homophobia. We have probably not gone quite as far in tackling transphobia. There is still much work to do and language does count. For young people, particularly teenagers, it is really important that they feel that they have the support at that stage in their lives. I strongly support Senator Warfield's remarks in that regard.

I wish to raise an issue concerning social media and I am aware that we have the online safety and media regulation Bill in this House in the new year. Mr. John Hand, who is a journalist with the Irish Mirror, wrote a story about the crime boss, Daniel Kinahan, which he then posted on Twitter. An anonymous account reported him to Twitter because he made reference to Daniel Kinahan as a drug baron and crime boss. On foot of that anonymous account, John Hand's Twitter account was frozen. This comes back to one of the regular problems we have seen with Twitter's failure to deal with anonymous accounts. In this case, however, a reputable journalist, who was reporting on a crime boss, had his account frozen. We now need to ensure, as part of the legislation that is coming in the new year, that we take strong action to deal with anonymous accounts. I also expect that in areas such as this we would see more responsibility being taken by social media companies.