Social Media
Seanad Éireann — 2025-11-19
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Linda Nelson Murray (FG), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I thank the Minister of State very much. I really appreciate him giving me this information. I will refer to a few points in the statement. It is great that funding of €1.1 million was announced in the budget "to support media literacy, fact-checking and research initiatives". That is going down the educational side of things.
The Minister of State also outlined that the "European Commission has commenced a range of investigations". He stated that "Commissioner McGrath announced details of the ... establishment of a European centre for democratic resilience." I very much welcome that measures are commencing and are about to be established, but I am afraid it will be too late for some people when it comes to mental health and well-being. I urge the Government to speak to social media companies. While being educated is definitely 50% of it, the other 50% is the companies' responsibility. If someone working in a restaurant gets abused, the owners would come and get the person out of the restaurant and they would never be allowed back in it again. The owners of social media companies are not protecting us enough and we should strongly urge them to do more when it comes to that space.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-11-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:20+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-19