Will the Deputy let me answer?

If the Deputy does not want to hear the answer, I will sit down. Does he want to hear the answer? Some local authorities are very good at this.

With the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's indulgence, as Minister with responsibility for the sector, I will join with him and with the House in extending the sympathies of my Department and of the Government to the family on their loss. It is not just a loss to the family but the loss of a great cultural icon here in Ireland.

Táim sásta a bheith anseo chun an cheist thar a bheith tábhachtach seo a phlé. Mar Aire Cultúir, Cumarsáide agus Spóirt, is í an tsábháilteacht ar líne, go háirithe do leanaí agus daoine óga, an chloch is mó ar mo phaidrín. Dála go leor eile sa Teach seo, is tuismitheoir mé mar aon le polaiteoir. Mar sin, tá sábháilteacht ar líne tábhachtach domsa mar athair. I am pleased to be here this afternoon to discuss this very important issue. As Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, online safety, in particular f…

Does the Deputy want to tax the television?

I will remind Pearse of that in the morning.

There is an awful lot to respond to. I have had the opportunity in private to welcome him back but I want to sincerely welcome back Deputy Boyd Barrett.

I have not had the opportunity to do so in the House since he returned. It is great to see him back. We never agreed on anything. I would hate to break the habit of a lifetime.

It is great to see him back and I hope he is recovering well. Best of luck to him. It is important to point out that the aggregate relates to the amount of money expended since 1980, a 45-year term. It is not that we are hoping to spend this money into the future; it is an aggregate. It is an issue that comes up with a lot of State agencies. It is clunky that they have to keep coming back to the Minister of the day to amend legislation. In this case, it is the Irish Film Board Act 1980. I agree with Deputy Ó Snodai…

The Deputy is not suggesting we nationalising the film companies?

Not to labour the point, copyright and workers' rights are matters for the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment and section 491, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh said, is a matter in the first instance for the Minister for Finance, but it is my role as Minister for culture to convince the Minister for Finance to widen the role of section 481. In this regard the Department has been quite successful over recent years. Now, at the end of 2025, the Department has begun discussions on the 2027 budget. We have already sta…

No landlords.

By the landlords.

I thank the Seanad for facilitating the Bill. As Members know, it is a technical Bill. It is really to make sure that the Irish Film Board, more commonly known to all of us as Screen Ireland, will have an adequate amount of money available to it. I intimated in the course of the discussions with Oireachtas Members that is my intention to bring a more substantive Screen Ireland Bill before the Oireachtas in the new year to deal with some of the issues the Senators raised during the debate in the House, including the…

Online safety is a key Government priority. We have taken major steps forward in recent years and with Coimisiún na Meán the heart of our online safety framework, we have the tools to improve online safety, in particular for children and vulnerable adults. The online safety framework comprises the online safety code, the EU Digital Services Act, DSA, under which An Coimisiún na Meán is Ireland's digital services co-ordinator, and the EU Terrorist Content Online Regulation, for which An Coimisiún na Meán is a compet…

We have had extensive engagement in the Department on this, in particular in the context of Ireland's Presidency of the EU Council in the second half of next year. I am very conscious of the complexities of the issue and the fact that Deputy Gibney has raised an issue regarding age verification. How do we verify someone's age without having a data set that we know is verifiable? If someone says they are not prepared to hand over a data set, how can a person's age be verified? This is a very serious issue. In order …

I am glad to inform the House that I inhabit the real world and most of the parents, teachers and people in the real world I speak to are concerned about children online and age verification. While Deputy Gibney might not think it is as important an issue as I do, as I said at committee it is important. Deputy Ó Snodaigh will recall that the last time we had to use the Government's data set for a particular piece of legislation, it floundered because some interest groups outside of the House were more interested in…

I thank the Deputy for welcoming the fact that the work on the Crawford Art Gallery is going ahead. The national cultural institution investment programme is a key investment programme for the Department under the national development plan. All of the projects, including the redevelopment of the Crawford Art Gallery, are progressed in line with the infrastructure guidelines. The purpose of the infrastructure guidelines process is to develop and refine the project, including the cost estimates. The redevelopment of …

The Deputy is quite right; there have been delays. We are now in a position whereby the contractor will be in place in January and it is to be hoped the project will be completed in 2028. The Deputy omitted to say, perhaps in error, that in the intervening period since the preliminary business case was completed, inflation in the construction sector has been running at 40% or more. It is a complicated and challenging site. It is a city centre site and heritage building. It is not straightforward. As with all of the…

Nobody wants to go out of his or her way to look stupid. The reality, as the Deputy knows as well as I do, is that when one goes under the bonnet of buildings like Leinster House, for example, one finds in the detailed design and in the final planning, as I saw in previous Departments I was in, that sometimes the depth of the problems associated with heritage buildings, in particular, is only discovered after the fact. I have made clear that I am not happy there is such a differential in the cost. The planning and …