Today, the members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media launched our report on the proposed online safety and media regulation Bill. It is hugely important legislation that it is to be hoped will be coming before us in the House in the winter. After nearly a year of intensive work, where we dealt with a huge spectrum of witnesses from across Irish life, the joint committee made 33 recommendations to the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, in respect of the Bill because it must be got right. We are dealing now with a medium that is highly influential on the manner in which society itself is conducted. We heard from our witnesses about the impact it is having, especially on young people. Some of the key recommendations we have made today include an individual complaints scheme available to people, that provisions be responsive to the need to, in particular, protect children and vulnerable groups and the provision of an online safety commissioner.

2917We had as a witness the Australian eSafety Commissioner. She has done amazing work in bringing to heel the social media companies which talk about self-regulation and the need for community standards, but whose standards fall very short when it comes to certain people. Other key recommendations include a ban on advertising to children online and that disinformation and financial harm, including gambling, be included as categories of harmful content and the need for a content levy on the major streaming companies in order that we can invest in original Irish content again. I look forward to the Minister taking on board the cross-party recommendations we made today on the online media safety Bill and to the Bill coming before this House before Christmas in order that it can be debated thoroughly and implemented.

I concur with Senator Cassells's comments. I was on that committee, along with Senators Byrne and Hoey. It is among the most important legislation we will see over the coming years. I am delighted and look forward to seeing the 33 recommendations we put forward implemented.

I also concur with the proposal from Senator Chambers on a discussion on forestry. It is a major issue and I welcome the recent acquisition by Glennon Brothers of Longford of Balcas, another large timber company, to turn it into one of the biggest timber-producing companies in the country. We need to address the issues in the forestry industry. It is having a knock-on effect on our house building.

I mentioned sports capital funding at the time of the budget. My understanding is allocations were to come out at some stage this month, but we had a small funding budget set aside for a large number of applications and there was only an extra €5 million in the budget for sports capital. I ask that we look again at that and the amount of funding available to make sure that all these sporting organisations, which have played such a pivotal part throughout Covid-19, get the funding they need to deliver their projects.

I will finish by welcoming back my party colleague, the Minister, Deputy McEntee. I happened to come in the gate of Leinster House today along with her. It is fantastic to see what she has done and highlights the need for permanent reform. I am glad there seems to be overtures in that direction. It is not before time.