"One-way ticket I'd give her back to the shithole she came from". That is about the only thing I could repeat in this House among an awful lot of online abuse that was posted under the social media of our candidate in the Galway West by-election, Helen Ogbu.

I am asking the Government to take action against online hate. The Tánaiste is no stranger to social media, both the positives and negatives, and I acknowledge that. Coimisiún na Meán needs the power to independently order the immediate takedown of individual posts. There is so much abuse under all of Councillor Ogbu's social media, to the point that we had a staff member who spent 40% of her time taking it down. We need to take action on this. It is undermining our democracy. It will stop good people from running for election in this country.

The Deputy is so right. It is disgusting, despicable racism, and it is not who we are as a people. The people of Galway showed that with the very significant vote Labour's candidate received. I was pleased to meet Helen Ogbu over the weekend and to congratulate her on her campaign. The Deputy's point about the powers of Coimisiún na Meán are valid. I will ask the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, to come back to the Deputy directly but my view on this is that we should take a much more robust legislative approach. We ask social media companies nicely if they would mind doing this or that. It has gone beyond that now. I see huge benefits to social media. I also see the sewer that it can become, with toxicity, division, misinformation and disinformation. I will ask the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, to reflect on the Deputy's points. I am disgusted to hear the abuse that a public representative received.