Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

While I understand that the digital services directive will be coming through, the Tánaiste and officials from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment are looking at this from one perspective, namely, regarding services and digital services. The Minister, however, has the capacity to look at from another angle, in much the same way as she mentioned that her colleague would be bringing forward measures concerning disinformation in the Electoral Reform Bill 2022. That will, of course, not undermine the Tánaiste's work in bringing forward measures in this context as well as part of the digital services legislation, when that arrives, because there is specific recognition of issues of potential harm in electoral processes.

Similarly, amendment No. 187a seeks to bring nuance to this provision. I accept that amendment No. 183a is prescriptive, whereas amendment No. 187a is quite minimalist. It is not asking the Minister to deal with all aspects of disinformation, but only disinformation insofar as it causes online harm. The electoral issue is one issue but there is also the matter of harm caused to individuals, specifically the serious harm to health caused during the pandemic by misinformation and disinformation.

While I appreciate it is the Minister’s expectation that this kind of provision will come about as part of the future regulatory framework, I ask if it might be possible to send a signal in this regard now. Regarding other issues that are going to come under the digital services directive, specifically cloud storage and interpersonal communications, rather than include them in the Bill, it would be better to send a signal that they may be included, subject to certain things. I am suggesting there may be capacity to put in a building block in this regard. If that is not possible, I ask the Minister to clarify that there is nothing in the Bill that precludes the commission, even now, from identifying and addressing an issue such as disinformation, if it so wished, within an online safety code. I suggest this because the advent of the digital services directive might be five years away, as the Minister said, and disinformation can do much harm in the meantime in areas from extending from Covid-19 to climate to politics.