Media Regulation Bill 2026: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-19
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Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Louth

Of course not. I can see the Minister of State is taking notes on all of the gems I am offering up.
This is the world we live in. It is important that we make sure that we put in the supports and checks. What has happened to date across the world is frightening. What could happen in the future with the tools that are in the hands of big tech and media moguls scares the life out of me. Some of this is what has facilitated the likes of Donald Trump to make his way into the White House. Like other instances, it also shows the failure of many others in politics. We need to ensure that it cannot happen here. Our job as the Opposition is to hold the Government to account, but it is necessary that any legislation relating to the media that comes from the Government holds the media to account, and then the media in turn holds all of us to account. That is only fair and proper.
I have no doubt that, if there is co-operation across the board, we will all look to find the framework that will work from the point of view of ensuring that we not allow a very small amount of people to gain too much of a foothold in the media, control the message and possibly undermine democracy. We need to ensure that those protections are introduced because there are far too many damaging aspects in the world at the minute that are impacting on democracy. We need to make sure that we do not allow this to continue.
Everyone will be pleased to hear that I am about to end.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:45+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-19