Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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Holly Cairns (SD), Cork South-West

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. I am aware that the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, had said she would arrange a meeting with X. That did not exactly fill me with confidence in the first instance. On “Morning Ireland”, we heard the UCD law professor and chair of Digital Rights Ireland, T.J. McIntyre, say that an immediate criminal investigation was warranted. He said that if somebody set up a child abuse image producing factory on, for example, Fenian Street, and their name was not Elon Musk, they would have been raided by the gardaí long ago. It is safe to say that in that scenario, there would not be any kind of meeting with the Minister.
I am glad the Taoiseach acknowledged that we have existing laws in relation to this for companies. Not distributing child sexual abuse images is one that very clearly should be abided by.
It is welcome that the Taoiseach has spoken to the Attorney General. I wonder when that happened and when he plans to convene the meeting of the relevant Ministers. Is the Taoiseach aware of any kind of investigation already taking place?

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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