Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is welcome to the House. There are some very serious issues with the Digital Services Bill that to date have not received enough attention, like the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 that preceded this. That Bill managed to sail through the Dáil with very little opposition.

I come at this from a very clear perspective. In my first week as president of the Teachers Union of Ireland I had to cope with one of our schools where two 11-year-old kids committed suicide. They committed suicide because of online bullying. What goes on online and through the digital media is frightening from time to time. As anybody in this House will tell you, when one makes a complaint to the likes of X about something that was said or something that was made up about us and some of the horrendous things that are said they come back and tell us it is not in breach of their rules. I would love to know precisely what the rules are.

The EU's Digital Services Act will control, we hope, illegal content but it does not just mean controlling child sexual abuse material or the import and export of contraband goods. It also includes stopping hate speech as defined by EU law. If the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022, which is very broad and open to interpretation, were to be enacted in conjunction with the Digital Services Bill, the consequences could be very serious indeed. The Bill allows additional national competent agencies to be designated with the power to conduct specific tasks and this would include NGOs. At the moment we are facing into a referendum where many State-funded NGOs are putting out information and disinformation saying that the existence of the current articles in the Constitution have placed limits on women's rights to work outside the home. We have had two women Presidents in this country, several women CEOs, and thousands of women who are working. There is no limit ever on women working in this country. Almost all State-funded NGOs are on board with this. This morning I questioned if this is directly in conflict with the McKenna judgment. Is the State usurping McKenna by using NGOs to sell the State's message around the referendums? The Electoral Commission has publicly stated that it does not have the means to regulate all misinformation and disinformation. Where does that leave us with the referendums? In a recent correspondence the commission did not define what it considers to be misinformation or disinformation. For example, if you or I see something online relating to the upcoming referendums that we feel is disinformation or misinformation, and today I will be writing to the commission on a number of those issues, if we are not aware of what is disinformation or misinformation then we do not know that we should be reporting it. Definitions must be clear to empower agencies if we want to avoid Kafkaesque scenarios. Empowering agencies to deal with the problem they cannot clearly define is not really a good idea.

The establishment of the new media commission is a positive development, but anyone who has paid close attention to the issues must recognise the incredible and unenviable task this new commission will have. The Bill grants external organisations the ability to engage in regulatory powers based often on vague definitions. Given the import of child sexual images and so on we clearly need the regulatory framework. The trend with Government policy regarding NGOs and the hate speech Bill, with the regulation of disinformation, and now with this piece of legislation is to create a regulatory framework by which views that go against the consensus or against the Government can be easily overshadowed or suppressed. We may find ourselves in a situation where we will not be able to speak out. That would be terrible as I am sure the Minister of State would agree. I know his own views and that he is a fairly decent guy. There are many people in this Chamber who would be regarded as left wing or progressive but who might dismiss my concerns, for example on hate speech. They might think that defending free speech is a cause for the privileged or for the extreme right wing, which is often used by Members of this House but we have to be able to speak out on things. We have to be able to highlight issues of concern. There is a creeping movement to try to suppress the public comment on Government. We have to try to find a balance. Legislation has been getting rammed through this House with no regard for the important role this reforming House plays. I know the Government has to have the Bill passed by 17 February, but I am asking it to make sure it gives us plenty of time and listens carefully to the amendments that are tabled.