I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. The public accounts committee published a report last November in respect of the 2023 appropriation account for Vote 33, which was the then Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, together with the 2023 financial statement of the Arts Council and the National Gallery of Ireland. In the report, the committee identified governance and oversight concerns across the Department and its agencies, including the Arts Council and the National Gallery. I understand the Minister for public expenditure will shortly issue his formal reply to the committee on the report. I am committed to ensuring the highest standards of oversight, value for money and transparency. I have acted to address the issues identified in the report. These include the appointment of an expert advisory committee in regard to the Arts Council whose report I brought to the Government today; engagement with the Institute of Public Administration to provide expert independent advice around governance and oversight to my Department; and establishing a dedicated State body governance unit within the Department. Transparency regarding departmental use of funds is ensured via publication of the annual budget books, the annual Revised Estimate and the annual appropriation account, as audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Each of these bodies under the aegis of the Department produces its own annual report and accounts, which are subject to audit and laid before both Houses. The Department and the bodies under its aegis, where relevant, appear before the public accounts committee and both Joint and Select Committees on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport. My Department continues to advance work to improve oversight and governance of the State bodes under its aegis. This will ensure the highest robust, comprehensive, transparent and efficient oversight and governance framework for all those bodies, consistent with my commitment to ensuring that State bodies operate with accountability, integrity and efficiency. In addition, the Department has completed an evaluation of the Department's performance information system, as recommended in the 2023 report on the accounts of the public services issued by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Guidance and training on the value of performance information and approach to choosing robust indicators has been provided for all staff. These steps, together with ongoing compliance within procurement and appraisal guidelines, will help to ensure the Department delivers value for money.

Sentiment score: 0.36

What the Deputy has seen from me so far is that once I become aware of the issue with the Art Council and the issues in the National Gallery, I dealt with them, and I did so fairly comprehensively. The report on the Arts Council was published today. It runs to 245 pages and contains well in excess of 190 recommendations. There are recommendations for all Departments, including my Department, State bodies and the Arts Council. Regarding the issue with the National Gallery, we dealt with that. The X-ray scanner went into use before Christmas. Regarding capital underspend, I have addressed this issue with the Deputy and Deputy Ó Snodaigh previously. The problem we have with many of the buildings housing the national cultural institutions is that they are not straightforward buildings like Leinster House. We have to go through a difficult and protracted procurement system. If we did not do so, we would be accused of jumping the gun and not obeying procurement rules or adhering to the public spending code. Based on the changes we have made in 2025, we will see a far better outcome regarding capital output in 2026.

Sentiment score: -0.07

I hope the Deputy had a chance to look at the report. It took me from 5 January until today to get in under the bonnet of it. Not all 149 recommendations are necessarily attributable to the Arts Council alone. There is an awful lot in the report from which other agencies can learn as well. Similar issues have arisen in other bodies, as I know from my time on the public accounts committee. One of the greatest learnings of the report is that small bodies such as the Arts Council sometimes expect to deliver once-in-a-lifetime projects and they do not have the experience to do so. The failings were laid bare in this case. The report will make important reading, not only for the Arts Council but for other State agencies and Government Departments.

Sentiment score: 0.07

In February 2025, I ordered an external review of the governance and organisational culture in the Arts Council, following the disclosure of a loss on a failed €6.675 million IT project in the Arts Council's annual report for 2023. With the agreement of the Government, I established an expert advisory committee comprising Professor Niamh Brennan, Dr. Margaret Cullen and John McCarthy to deliver the review. The committee has concluded its work and today I brought its review to Government, which approved its publication and it is now publicly available. The committee was fully independent in its approach and has ensured that the review process was robust, fair and transparent, leading to practical, actionable recommendations to improve the Arts Council's governance. The review includes 149 recommendations, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh has said, of which 100 are addressed to the Arts Council. The remainder are to the Department, the Department of public expenditure and reform and other Departments. It includes proposals for legislative changes, on which I intend to revert to Government. As I have mentioned, there are also a number of recommendations directed at my Department and more widely for the Government. It is vital that we put in place structures to prevent future governance failures and I intend to implement in full the recommendations which are addressed to my Department and to the Arts Council. The Department will now engage directly with the interim director and the chair of the Arts Council to ensure that the organisation is supported during this interim period, ahead of what will be a time of significant change. This will be important for the wider arts sector and I want to assure it that the council will continue its day-to-day operation of supporting artists. The Arts Council will have six weeks from today to submit a plan to me that sets out the actions it will take to implement the committee's recommendations, along with timelines for delivery. I have also instructed officials in the Department to establish a monitoring group to measure the Arts Council's progress and to ensure that it delivers on its implementation plan. The recommendations that relate to my Department have been accepted and will be implemented in full, under the oversight of the management board. Progress will be measured through a quarterly report with a view to ensuring that the Department has a robust, comprehensive and effective governance oversight framework in place, not just in respect of the Arts Council but for all of the bodies under our responsibility.

Sentiment score: 0.27

Deputy Ó Snodaigh has raised a very important issue. The formulation, compilation and completion of the report was done independently but prior to the conclusion of the report the chapters relating to each individual entity were circulated to those entities for their observations. I did not receive the final report until 5 January and I published it today. I have accepted Professor Brennan's recommendations together with the committee in full and I thank the committee for the work it has done. As they say, it has done the State some service here. There is an opportunity as well for the committee of which Deputy Ó Snodaigh is a member to peruse the report, go through the recommendations and see. I will bring forward a timetable for implementation from the Arts Council which I will take back to the Government. I will have a quarterly review from my management board which I will also report to the Government. There is an awful lot here for other Departments, State bodies and semi-State bodies to examine to see whether there are recommendations that cross over and to see how they could be implemented to improve the operation of these bodies.

Sentiment score: 0.16

I think Deputy Ó Snodaigh would agree with me that the Arts Council has gone through a fairly tumultuous period of change in the recent past, and I acknowledge the role that Dr. Moling Ryan has played as an interim director. I have no plans in the immediate future to do any further chopping and changing. I want to leave things bed down and get a genuine schedule and timetable for the change management that is now required to go through. There will also be legislative requirements and Professor Niamh Brennan referred to this also. Deputy Ó Snodaigh and I have discussed possible changes to the existing Arts Act. There will obviously be consultation and engagement with the committee that we will have to do. I do not want to see any other major change. There is a sufficient amount there. On whether the Arts Council will get a new IT system, there is a board and executive and it may be that they may feel it is worthy to come back to the Department and revisit this whole thing from the start. There was a suggestion of an off-the-shelf version that could be acquired. I will consider anything but at the moment the most important thing is that the report is there, the recommendations need to be implemented, there is a schedule of timeframes before the implementation, there is engagement with the committee and there is the Arts Council getting back to the daily business of what it is best at.

Sentiment score: 0.19

I want to put on the record my disgust at the type of material that is being created and shared on social media. It is abhorrent. My first concern is with those affected, in particular women, young children and young people in general. The sharing of non-consensual intimate images is illegal under the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020, also known as Coco's Law; and the generation or distribution of any child sexual abuse material is illegal under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998. If a member of the public is concerned about images shared online, they should report it immediately to An Garda Síochána. Such reports and complaints are important for An Garda Síochána in its investigations of suspected criminality, and it is the responsibility of the Director of Public Prosecutions to direct prosecution of any individual or company for alleged offences. People should also report this type of content to Hotline.ie, the national reporting centre, which will also pursue the removal of that content. Finally, under our online safety framework, there is an obligation on platforms to act on reports of illegal content. This is why I would encourage any user to report illegal content to the online platform where they saw it and to Coimisiún na Meán. An coimisiún utilises complaints to help assess compliance by platforms with the online safety framework so reporting illegal content helps an coimisiún in its work. Under the Digital Services Act, the European Commission has lead responsibility for the oversight of very large online platforms, including X. The European Commission has been very clear in warning X that it must remedy this matter and X has claimed it has taken certain steps to do so. However, the European Commission is taking investigative steps and an announcement on further action is expected imminently. This may include interim measures such as requiring a change to a service. Coimisiún na Meán is Ireland's digital services co-ordinator under the Digital Services Act and in this role it is continuing to work with the European Commission on this serious matter. I support the European Commission, as the lead regulator, in taking all possible and necessary steps to ensure that X is brought into compliance with its regulatory obligations. As Minister, it would be wrong to seek to interfere with the process of investigation but I am committed, along with my Government colleagues, to doing all that is required to ensure that people, in particular women, children and young people, are protected online. Ireland has strong laws in place and the Attorney General is continuing to examine whether these can be further strengthened. I will bring a memorandum to Government in the coming weeks to set out our next steps.

Sentiment score: 0.01

I will take the last question first. I do not know if the number has increased. That is because it is a Garda matter. It is not for the Government to interfere in the operations of the Garda Síochána, nor is it the role of the Minister to interfere where there is an independent regulator. In this case, there are two independent regulators, namely Coimisiún na Meán and the European Commission. Due to the very large nature of the online platform under scrutiny in this instance, X, this is a matter for the Commission in the first instance. As the Deputy probably heard me say, I am expecting a statement imminently from the European Commission on this matter. I thought it would have come today or yesterday but it did not. I expect that, hopefully, it will come before the end of the week. The sooner it comes the better, to be quite honest. In the context of my interaction with X, I met with its representatives prior to Christmas. I met them along with representatives from a number of other platforms, including Google, TikTok, Meta and LinkedIn. In respect of the latest controversy, given the fact I am the Minister with responsibility for the regulator and ensuring that the regulator fulfils its role, I do not think, to be quite honest, that it would be appropriate for me to meet somebody who would potentially be under investigation, no more than it would be appropriate for the Minister for Justice to meet them if it was a Garda-related matter.

Sentiment score: 0.20

I do think it is a mistake. To be quite honest, X should send representatives. The company is operating in the jurisdiction. The last time I was asked about people attending the committee in question was when the FAI said that it was not going to send representatives. I was asked on the radio whether I thought its representatives should appear and I said that they should. I also stated that a letter should be issued on the afternoon of that day. A letter was issued. I think X's representatives should go in. Representatives from all the platforms should do so. Failure to engage with the people's representatives in Dáil Éireann says an awful lot. I do not think other social media platforms take that view. They have engaged with the committee and I know that Coimisiún na Meán has done so as well. In relation to what we have done, it is important to point out that the House has taken significant steps with regard to issues around child sex abuse, pornography and pornographic images of children. The State has acted in that context. It has also acted very clearly in respect of the sharing of images in a non-consensual fashion. It is illegal to do that in this country. We had a meeting the other night, convened by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, in respect of this issue. I will be bringing a memorandum to the Government on this matter shortly in order to update it on what exactly the current situation is vis-à-vis the law. If there are further changes that I or the Minister of Justice or both of us together need to do in this space, we will make them. Ideally, this should be done by the European Commission. It is regrettable that the European Union has not done more in this space.

Sentiment score: 0.05