Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Senators for their support for the Bill. I thank Senator Higgins for the thought she has given to the digital empowerment fund. This Bill is limited to and strictly focused on funding activities at Coimisiún na Meán for enforcing the Digital Services Act and the terrorist content online regulation, which will remove a burden on the Exchequer to fund the regulatory functions for the Digital Services Act. I am not able to incorporate her idea in this Bill, given its limited focus, but I like the idea. I will ask officials to see what we can do. It segues into Senator Warfield's proposals around what is known as the European works levy. I understand Coimisiún na Meán will submit that research to the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, in the coming weeks and she will then be able to make decisions in relation to it. It captures exactly what the Senator described. It may be that we can incorporate some of what Senator Higgins proposed into the broader concept of what Coimisiún na Meán may or may not propose to the Minister. I will bring both Senators' proposals to her attention. I will also look at the digital empowerment fund. The Senator is right; we are focused on digital and enterprise but I also want digital to be about society and how we skill and equip society.

On how much will be raised, a good indication is that in budget 2024 we allocated €6 million to Coimisiún na Meán to support capacity building and initial operations in this space. The Department of Justice has allocated €500,000 to Coimisiún na Meán to support its functions under the terrorist content online regulation. The amount needed to ensure it is self-financed will increase as operations mature, the full effect of the regulations kicks in and the need to hire appropriately qualified staff grows. We continue to engage with Coimisiún na Meán and the digital services co-ordinator around budget asks to make sure they are robust and ensure they are properly resourced. Those engagements have always been positive. We intend for this levy to fund that size of operation. That is a baseline figure.