Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

First of all, I thank the Deputy for raising the issue because it is a very grave and serious issue that the Government will respond to. In terms of specific prosecutions, as the Deputy knows, gardaí investigate any breaches of the law or any criminal activity, and the DPP decides whether prosecutions take place or not. I believe the public should report these incidents in the first instance to An Garda Síochána so the full range of the law can be applied.
I have asked the Attorney General, and the Attorney General is providing advices. I am convening a meeting of a number of Government Ministers who are relevant to this issue with the Attorney General. There is existing legislation. There is the AI Act, which may not cover all aspects of this. I want a rigorous examination of that, and then, if there are any gaps at all in the law, and there may be, for those to be addressed quickly.
It is a very serious issue, and one on which we have to engage with the platforms. The friendship of any owner of the platform with anybody else is irrelevant to the Government’s consideration of this. It is about protecting our children, protecting women and protecting citizens generally from unacceptable images, unacceptable activity and manipulation of AI tools for wrong purposes. We have to be very clear and forthright with the platforms in respect of this. It is not just Grok or AI tools. It is in respect of any platform that, in any shape or form, facilitates abusive images to be portrayed on that platform, or any illegal material. We have to be ruthless across the board in respect of these issues to protect our people.
There is zero necessity for this. It is outrageous and shocking. We will deal with it as a Government. Existing law enforcement should be applied. As the Deputy knows, we have the Digital Services Act. The European Commission has powers with respect to the proliferation of illegal content on online platforms, including X, and there is the protection of fundamental rights and protection for minors. Coimisiún na Meán has been established. The public can report illegal content to Coimisiún na Meán, which has to react. It is our online safety and media regulator, and is at the heart of the online safety framework here in Ireland. An Garda Síochána is also there. Reports can be made to the Irish national reporting centre at hotline.ie , and there are fines and so on. The AI Act is also there. We will examine it again because this is a fast-moving area in terms of the advance and movement of technology. We want to make absolutely sure that all angles are covered and that we deal with this robustly.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13