Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be honest, the insertions are a Bill in themselves. There is a lot of information that the Minister of State is adding at this Stage.

To start with, the power to prescribe definition amendment No. 1 states, "The Commission may, by order, prescribe such period as it considers appropriate to be an election campaign period ...", and the definition, in amendment No. 84, of the "election campaign period", states "the period commencing 3 months prior to the latest date when an election is required by law to be held and ending when the electoral period ends". On the one hand, the Minister of State is saying the electoral commission will decide when the period is and on the other hand, he is defining it as "the period commencing 3 months prior to the latest date ...".

I suppose the issue here is if disinformation or bots are impacting the electoral system they should be regulated, but why would they not be regulated continuously? If there are bots or disinformation targeting a political party - there is only a finite number of those - today, it is not an electoral period. One may argue we are always in an electoral period not defined. We are always preparing or thinking about elections and people are always being influenced from an early date in relation to making their mind up about the next election and who they might vote for. Why define it as only the election campaign? Disinformation, as I said, is wrong during an election campaign. It is equally wrong in the year before the election, two years before the election and three years before the election. I wonder is that something that the electoral commission could consider? Is it something that the Department has considered? Is it as easy to define? To put it simply, if it is wrong during an election campaign period, why is it not wrong a year in advance of that?