Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 March 2023
199. Deputy Ged Nash asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media if the Online Safety Commissioner will have any responsibility for ensuring social media companies do not allow the targeting of advertisements for conversion therapy at people. [12063/23]
View answer200. Deputy Duncan Smith asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media if the Online Safety Commissioner will have any responsibility for ensuring social media companies do not allow the targeting of advertisements for conversion therapy at people. [12075/23]
View answer202. Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media if the Online Safety Commissioner will have any responsibility for ensuring social media companies do not allow the targeting of advertisements for conversion therapy at people. [12148/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 199, 200 and 202 together.
In the first instance, it must be stated that so-called conversion therapy is an abhorrent practice which either seeks to deny the existence of sexual and gender identities as genuine identities or to reframe these benign aspects of the human experience as something needing correction. The Programme for Government commits to legislating to ban conversion therapy. My colleague Minister O’Gorman, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, is leading on the development of this legislation. My officials are engaging with officials in Minister Gorman’s Department to ensure that the legislation brought forward will not only ban the practice but also the advertisement of the practice.The Online Safety and Media Regulation Act provides for Coimisiún na Meán, of which the Online Safety Commissioner is part, to make media service codes and online safety codes related to advertising. Therefore, provisions relating to the advertisement of conversion therapy that are brought forward by Minister O’Gorman will be reflected in such codes. A service provider which contravenes media service or online safety codes can be subjected to significant penalties, including financial sanctions of up to €20 million or 10% of turnover, whichever is higher.
