Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have two really quick points. The Minister mentioned the online safety commissioner but, of course, there is not an online safety commissioner in the Bill as it stands. Again, that is the headline. That is what everybody goes out with. That is why we are being told we need to pass it. However, it is not there. I just need to be very clear. There should be, and will have to be, an online safety commissioner in the Bill before it leaves the Seanad, given that is what we have been advertising and what is being discussed. This is what the public is waiting for in the Bill.

The Minister mentioned that there will be new legislation coming on the digital services directive. We are all looking forward to engaging on that. I think she will get constructive engagement from everybody on it. However, she acknowledged there will need to be legislation on that and it will impact on a number of regulatory authorities. I would suggest in that context, if the priority is to ensure that we deliver our obligations under the audiovisual, AV, directive, then we should not include elements that do not probably belong under it, particularly regarding cloud storage and interpersonal communication, which are areas that definitely need to be regulated. Indeed, the digital services directive will be one of the key tools to regulate them. However, it would seem that if the focus is complying with our AV directive obligations, why are we adding in elements that the Minister has already said we will have to come and regulate for anyone and do brand new laws on? Within those brand new laws, we will be setting out the roles of different regulators in relation to them. There is nothing in the Bill that will preclude those areas coming in, but at the moment those two areas are implied to be included under all of the provisions and functions of the Bill. They are there with one caveat that says they do not apply in a certain context with regard to how there is a limit in terms of offences. However, that caveat almost implies that they are subject to everything else, by the very nature of it being there. It just seems that if we are trying to streamline what needs to go through, there might be somewhat of a premature aspect of a directive that just passed yesterday and the areas that it is covering not being properly reflected here.

This is a sign of the concern to simply say that we took this language from the previous Act. Again, it is not reflecting the evolution that we have to have. There is an evolution in technologies, but there is also an evolution in terms of legislation. We now have a wide variety of circumstances in which NGOs, civil society and others have effectively been hamstrung from communicating with the public. Bear in mind, they often do not have the editorial ownership of media, which others may have. We should be learning from that. We should not be putting a measure that has been problematic in the past and just directly transposing it here. I would urge the Minister, who indicated her willingness to talk to the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, regarding "political purposes", to do so. Let us have this legislation up to date in that respect as well.