Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, on the general points, the Minister will see there are really strong feelings across this House with regard to this Bill. It is a little bit unfortunate that it is coming slightly prematurely when we had the digital services directive pretty much agreed yesterday. We know there are major areas of policy on which the expert group has not come back and, of course, it is a concern that many of the recommendations of the committee do not seem to be really reflected in the legislation. Again, I know that Senators from all parties played a very active role in the committee and will be keen to see the progress. The fundamental message here is that the Seanad wants to see this Bill improved before it continues on its journey. Even if they might not always align, there are strong ideas across the Seanad as to how it could be improved.

There has been discussion in terms of political parties and political advertisements and such. I take that on board but I would have that concern in terms of inequality. If there were regulations, for example, they really would need to address the issues. We do not want situations whereby, for example, there is a huge amount of online money in an electoral context. That was a huge issue in previous elections and referendums where that question arose. In fact, we will come later to some of the discussions on advertising in particular. There were questions around the constraints we have and that political donations, for example, need to be reflected in terms of advertising, including the restrictions on overseas payment for advertising. It would be appropriate that there be some level of equity, limitation and cap in terms of what can be spent on advertising during elections. We are all grateful in Ireland that we do not have that kind of money-takes-all approach we see in some countries in terms of elections, which effectively prohibits a huge number of people from participating.

I would be very concerned in respect of the question on industrial disputes, as was mentioned by Senator Sherlock, not least because one of the areas in which we have a huge push for unionisation at the moment relates to online media services themselves. We might look to Amazon workers who are trying to mobilise, for example. We do not want to have a situation whereby advertising from a very powerful company could be used in an industrial dispute. We saw with some of the gig economy workers organising in the US, certainly, that there were very vigorous campaigns against the workers in that context. That is just to mention those caveats.

The crucial point on why we brought forward these amendments is the political purpose and end point. We were promised by another Minister that the unforeseen, possibly, and certainly regrettable consequences of how political purposes were described very widely in other legislation were going to be addressed. In fact, we were promised that the Electoral Reform Bill would address it. It has, therefore, been acknowledged as being a problem. We brought forward legislation on that definition and we were asked to leave our legislation aside because the Government was planning to address it. Yet, we have brand new legislation that is seeking to replicate the exact same problem, that is, this very wide prohibition in terms of political purposes. The thing we have basically been told will be removed and dealt with is now popping up in another context. That is a concern.

To give a small example from my own record, I worked for Trócaire when an advertisement that said someone who is born a girl may face inequality was found to be too political and banned from the radio under the old rules.Trócaire was told that there were political purposes to the advertisement because it was highlighting an issue of policy. No one would dispute the statement of fact that women face gender inequality in society, but that advertisement was deemed too political to be on radio. That is what happens when this clause is used in respect of other media. That is how dangerous it is, which is why inserting it again and reinforcing it without any nuance, consideration or detail is a recipe for the same problem, only worse. At least when these things happen in radio and other media, there is a commons, but if it is also happening in the online space, tracking egregious examples of advertisements getting blocked or particular Internet service providers declining to host an advertisement becomes much more difficult.