I am baffled by the speech of the Minister of State, and the Government should be ashamed of itself. It has really shown its true colours. It is paying lip service to the issue that is at stake, which is the well-being, mental health and safety of the children, young people and women who are victims of this toxic misogyny, which is not just online, as we have discovered. It gets translated into brutal physical reality, as will be evidenced in the protests that are taking place in UCD today. The Minister of State acknowledged all the horrible stuff that is directed at women and politicians. The algorithms are designed to promote self-harm, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, hate, misogyny and hatred against trans people. We can go through the list of toxic content. The Ministers say, "Well, yes, there are some harmful aspects to this, but the status quo is what we are doing. We're going to vote down your Bill and maintain the status quo ", as if anything is being doing about this, when nothing is being done about it. Anybody who cares to go online right now will find that out. The Government has decided to do nothing. It is clear what is being prioritised here, which are the profits of companies that profit from this hateful, despicable material and make money from promoting suicidal ideation, eating disorders or hate. That is evil. What some of these companies are doing is the definition of evil. The Government has decided to prioritise their profits ahead of the well-being and welfare of young people, children and women. That is shameful. There is a direct line between the Government voting down this Bill, its refusal to act against the social media and IT companies - not exclusively but mostly American multinationals - and its refusal to impose sanctions over the genocide in Gaza or to condemn what the US and Israel are doing in Iran and setting the entire Middle East on fire. It will not condemn it for the same reason, because it does not want to upset the US empire. That is it. It does not want to upset these big obscenely wealthy multinational companies that profit from this sort of divisive toxic material or the big military industrial complex that profits from setting the Middle East on fire or profits from allowing, and indeed arming and supporting, Israel's genocide in Gaza. Profit comes first, despite the most obscene crimes and the most horrible things being done, turning our world into a very dangerous place. The Government will prioritise the profits of the people who benefit from all of this. That is frankly shameful. Not only, by the way, will we not do anything about it, but we will also give them money to do it with research and development tax credits. We will give them €1.4 billion. There was another €300 billion in the previous budget. We will give them the money to research to how to do this to our children. That is what we are doing. I was at the press briefing of RTÉ workers yesterday who were fighting to defend their jobs and public service broadcasting. Do not get me wrong, I sometimes have problems with the decisions that RTÉ makes, but my God, give me RTÉ over X, Meta, Google and Facebook any day of the week. While RTÉ is being dismantled and privatised and its work is being outsourced essentially to be replaced by these guys that profit from pumping this poison at our society, our young people and so on, we will take the money off public service broadcasting and hand it to these companies. We will not say boo to them in terms of regulating stuff that the Government acknowledges is harmful, but we will not do anything about it. Even Coimisiún na Meán, which the Minister of State said is dealing with it, recommended turning off these recommender algorithms. We are not in favour of a ban, by the way. Children will get around a ban. It will actually make it more attractive. Anybody who knows anything about young people knows that. Young people, by and large, as all the polls show, do not want this stuff force-fed to them. They want to make their own decisions. Banning it is not the answer. It is about standing up to these guys and not letting them profiteer by force-feeding the poisonous stuff to our young people. Coimisiún na Meán was recommending that in the first draft of the online safety code, but it took it out because of the lobbying of the companies. We know that because it is on record that they lobbied to take it out. The Government just straightforwardly capitulates to these people because they are profiting from it, and then our society picks up the pieces in terms of our young people's well-being and mental health being assaulted by these toxic algorithms to the detriment of children, young women and vulnerable groups in our society and generally to the detriment of our society in creating a divisive toxic atmosphere which is getting ever worse. The Government should be ashamed of itself for doing this and for the priorities it has decided on but, as I said, there is a consistency in its policies.

Sentiment score: -0.08