Media Regulation Bill 2026: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-11
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Aidan Davitt (FF), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I am delighted to welcome the Minister of State back today. He has outlined important legislation. He touched on two parts that I think are of the utmost importance. First is the part pertaining to online issues. How matters are reported online and associated disinformation happens has to have some sort of filter or safeguard. That is an important part which the Minister of State has hinted at. He also mentioned the national media, the priority, and the guarantees to our national media. It is something else that we have a grade A - we are lucky to have in this country - a guaranteed standard of verified information that people know they can go to and rely on.
As part of his briefing, the Minister of State might tease out one other matter further. The regional and provincial newspapers really need to be protected and nourished at present. I am sure there are safeguards pertaining to them, as the Minister of State has outlined, that will protect them in a certain way, but they need some sort of financial help. Many of these papers and entities are at a crossroads. If we do not do this, we risk the quality of news that has been produced over the years from the Dundalk Democrat to the Westmeath Examiner or Westmeath Topic in County Westmeath. These papers are extremely important. People know when they open the paper that what they are hearing is reality, not fiction or somebody's hard opinion on what they think reality should be. They are getting the hard facts. This source of information and news was never more needed than it is at present. Anything we can do to help assist and maintain these sources of news for the local communities is most important.
As part of his brief and as part of this overall review, while this regulation is welcome and much-needed, I ask the Minister of State in his position to do anything he can to influence and bolster these blocks of real information in our lives. I thank the Minister of State and appreciate the legislation. We look forward to seeing him with his sports hat on in St. Loman's in Mullingar very soon. He was instrumental in providing a great service to the club there recently. Robert and I will be delighted to have the Minister of State back in Mullingar to turn on our lights. We will be doing it literally this time, not just metaphorically.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-11