Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted that the Minister of State feels this is an important issue and that it requires cross-party support, a cross-departmental response and an holistic response.I agree with the message behind that. However, I push back on the idea that the content reporting systems Coimisiún na Meán is implementing work; they do not. We have heard from civil society bodies such as Women's Aid, Safe Ireland and the National Youth Council that the work it is doing with respect to the code of conduct, code of practice and regulations is really softball. We need to do more, and that means regulating social media companies with headquarters here. We could lead on this in Europe. We cannot shy away from the reckless attitude being taken by social media companies. They are genuinely not willing to do anything. Meta and X have now pulled back their expressions around online safety commitments. Regulatory restrictions are first and foremost for safety. That is the key. It is not all of it but it is a critical part of addressing the recommender algorithms, which, as we know and recognise given that so much research has been done on them, push young men and women towards harmful content online.