Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2022-05-31
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

I encourage the Minister to engage with Senator Byrne. The Minister mentioned the criminal sanction for refusal to comply with an order and that is where it kicks in. It comes back to the question of patterns, for example, if the same persons are in charge when there are multiple breaches, either in the same company or in different companies. There may be a breach involving an individual who is caught, then complies before the criminal sanction comes in, then commits another similar breach. What happens when persons in roles of responsibility commit multiple different breaches either in one company or another? This is all about dissuading that kind of practice. I urge the Minister to engage on how those can be identified. Otherwise, there are many rewards for individuals committing breaches.
We have at the moment a culture whereby the financial rewards that have been outlined are potentially immense and the penalties are only financial penalties, except if someone refuses to comply with an order. Again, on the potential incentive to try out multiple slightly different breaches, each time someone complies with an order and avoids the criminal sanctions is a danger. What we do not want is effectively to have the public experimented on. In that regard, there is potential for strengthening the Bill and this should be looked at.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2022-05-31/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-05-31