Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-17
============================================================

Robbie Gallagher (FF), Labour Panel

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Chathaoirleach agus cuirim fáilte ar ais arís eile go dtí an Teach seo tráthnóna roimh an Aire. I thank the Minister sincerely for his efforts in relation to his attendance in the Chamber. It is appreciated by all the Members. He is giving his time freely and it is appreciated.
To conclude my contribution and following on from the contributions of my two learned colleagues to my left, the whole area of social media seems to be in many ways a bit of a runaway train at the moment. We are trying to catch up and give protection to those affected. No later than this morning, someone contacted me who was never on social media in his life and suddenly he discovered in the past few days that someone has made a fake profile of him and is posting material that would be slanderous of those he speaks about. It is causing trauma to him and his family. He is under serious stress because he did not know anything about it until he was contacted by one of the people affected by and referred to in the posts. The gentleman in question knew nothing about it because he had never been on social media. It has caused him undue stress. He is not familiar with social media and it was only when he was notified by one of the affected parties that he was informed of it. He is at a loss as to where to go and what he can do. It is a big problem. He made the point that surely there is responsibility on the Internet platforms to make sure the accounts of those who are posting material are proper accounts, that they have been authorised and that relevant data has been given. He said that before he puts a bet on at the bookie's, he has to verify his identity and go through a process. Surely, he says, the same should apply to these Internet platforms. They should be looking for some form of identification to ensure those who are posting are who they say they are.
In many ways, what we are doing here today is reacting to something that has already happened. That is a difficulty, as the Minister outlined on a previous occasion. We are chasing it in real time. That man said that perhaps the only way we can try to get to grips with this and get ahead of it is to put as much pressure as we can on, or make it mandatory for, the platforms to ensure that anyone who posts on their platform gives their identity and that the identity is substantiated. If it is Robbie Gallagher, I will have to prove it is Robbie Gallagher making the post.
I do not know what the Minister's comments will be about that. That only happened this morning and to say this man was in a distressed state would be a complete understatement.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-17