There is unfinished business following the recent referendum to repeal the eighth amendment. Obviously, we have all of the legislation required, but there is one other aspect about which I want to ask. We are still in the middle of a real crisis in terms of the effect of online advertising in elections and referendum campaigns across the world. Only yesterday we saw controversy in the United Kingdom where the Leave campaign may have exceeded the spending limits, mainly for online advertising. In America the Cambridge Analytica findings are still washing out in terms of what happened during the presidential election. In our own country during the referendum campaign we were very lucky to have the Transparent Referendum Initiative which was able to show what adverts were being posted, but it was impossible to know what the actual volume was or the amount of money behind them. Facebook and then Google, with only a few weeks to go to polling day, stopped all advertising.

They were biased.

At a committee hearing last week Google seemed to intimate that it had been concerned about a wave of finance to affect the result of the referendum. That may be why it made its call. I do not think the referendum was decided by online advertising but mainly in houses, on the streets and at doors and through the mainstream media. However, there is a real issue with transparency in referendum and election advertising. We have an opportunity to set a precedent and set the record straight on what exactly happened in the referendum. When its representatives came to the Oireachtas committee, we asked Facebook to provide detailed data for the value of advertising and how much money had been spent. My colleagues in the European Parliament asked the same questions when Mark Zuckerberg went to Brussels to answer questions. Facebook replied that it could not do so, that technically it would be difficult, although it was working on its tools to provide for such transparency. However, I believe it is possible for it to do so. It should sit down with the Transparent Referendum Initiative and the UCD Dynamics lab to work on the issue of how to manage the data. With proper safeguards in GDPR rules, Facebook should provide information for the public on the volume of advertising during the recent referendum campaign. This would allow us to close the book on the referendum, but it would also set a precedent. Yesterday we placed a motion on the Order Paper setting out those circumstances and asking Facebook and Google to sit down with UCD and the Transparent Referendum Initiative and provide the data sought.

Will the Tánaiste support such a call? Does he think it presents an opportunity? This is not controversial. Our referendum result was not a close call. It was a clear win, so it is an opportunity for the company and for us as a country to start setting some precedents and some basic ground rules around transparency in election advertising. Will the Tánaiste support such a call to Facebook and Google and does he think it will be of benefit? He is a foreign Minister. He sees lots going on around the world. Does he think such transparency in the democratic process will be useful?

I agree with a lot of what the Deputy said. There has been quite a bit of discussion in government on this issue. How do we ensure future elections in Ireland are not being influenced inappropriately, as has clearly been the case in other countries? We certainly cannot rely on the voluntary decisions of large multimedia companies to protect the democracies we have an obligation to protect. The question is what actions Government can take supported by other parties in this House to ensure that elections, be they referenda or other forms of election such as presidential, local, European or general, are not influenced inappropriately by the use of social media with sponsors coming from outside the State. At the same time, how we do allow the use of modern media platforms to allow people to sell a message legitimately and undertake the usual political debate that happens at election time because so many people now get their information from those platforms. That is a difficult balancing act for this House to get right but we all have a vested interest in working on that.

I certainly hope and expect that companies like Facebook and Google will co-operate in the context of transparency, understanding the volumes of advertising funding coming from outside the State and the point of that. That would be helpful in terms of understanding the challenges we need to take on as a legislative body to look at whether we need to introduce new legislation or new policy in this regard. Having spoken to many other foreign Ministers about this issue, I can say that it is an issue that virtually every country in the western world is grappling with to try to protect its electoral system from a rapidly changing media platform that, if not managed, can skew results in a way that is very inappropriate.

I agree with the Tánaiste that much of the advertising could be beneficial. I would not look for a ban on political advertising. The work carried out by the Transparent Referendum Initiative showed that roughly half the adverts were about getting people involved, encouraging people to do fundraisers or come along canvassing. Whichever side one is on, that is a good thing. This is why I think this referendum campaign could set a standard or lessons can be learned that would be applicable not just here but across the world. As a country with a very large digital industry and a real interest in getting the standards and proper organisation right, we need to work as a common voice to say to the companies that they should use this an example of good practice and learn the lessons that could be applied elsewhere.

We have Deputy Lawless's legislation, which we must put through in the meantime. To be honest, the companies were in a difficult situation because they made calls in the absence of any real rules. We must put the rules in place fairly quickly. It is one of the jobs this House must do, but I take it from the Tánaiste's response that he is supportive of the broad call, that it is not a contentious or divisive issue and that it is not even a divisive issue between the political system and the companies because it is an opportunity to set standards and to show as a country how this might be done. This would be a useful signal for the rest of the world as well as to the rest of us at home. Can I get the Tánaiste's support for that motion on the Order Paper? He can read it if he wants to come back to me. Will he give such support to that call?

I would like to take a look at the detail of what the Deputy is asking for. This is primarily a matter for the companies involved. We cannot force them or we are certainly not proposing to do that in this call but I will take a look at it. The substantive point made by the Deputy is a very relevant one. As a Government, we have asked a number of people to look at this and come back with recommendations to Government in terms of how we can protect the electoral system in the future and not undermine the positive capacity that is there on social media platforms.

Anyone who has been involved in the past two referendum campaigns in Ireland will know that much of that conversation took place on new media and engaged a much younger population than is often engaged in referendum campaigns. That was a really positive and good thing. We need to make sure we try to protect media freedom and freedom of speech and ensure that all views have an opportunity to be put across on all media platforms, but at the same time we need to make sure the more sinister elements that have certainly been involved in trying to skew election results internationally do not impact on Ireland in a negative way. Trying to get that balance right is not easy. Virtually every country in the western world, many of them with far more resources than we have, is struggling to deal with this issue.