As the element of the proposed all-in-one media regulator already in existence, it fell to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) to give its take on what the Media Commission, its effective successor, might look like and how it will work.
The BAI, as its chief executive Celene Craig told the Oireachtas media committee, employs about 40 people, or 36 full-time equivalents, while "discussions" with Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, the Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Catherine Martin and her officials suggest the Media Commission will have staffing in line with that of the Data Protection Commission, or about 180 people.
“We would expect that it may well go, over time, beyond 180 staff,” Craig said.
Regulatory knowledge
This rather large new watchdog will be in the market to employ both people with transferable regulatory knowledge and people with experience of how online platforms function and are moderated, and indeed there is already “extensive interest” internationally in “not just what Ireland is doing but how it is actually going to do it”, Craig said.
Some details remain unknown, in part because the Minister decided in January to set up an expert group to examine if it is “practicable” to include an individual complaints mechanism in the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, the sprawling legislation that will create the Media Commission.
Her department had previously concluded that this would not be feasible because the Media Commission would be regulating some online services on a pan-EU basis, but it was pushed to explore the issue further by the Oireachtas committee.
Staffing implications
If the Government does end up going down this path, it will have “very, very significant implications for staffing”, Craig warned in the politest of terms.
The BAI’s submission to the expert group has aimed to give it “some options for consideration”, she said: “It’s a case of trying to balance this issue of scale with the real desirability to have a form of redress for individual complainants where they have been badly impacted by harmful content online.”
But there are limits to what is possible. The BAI is “pretty clear”, Craig said, that “taking complaints from all of Europe” – from close to 450 million citizens – on “every aspect of the legislation” would not be workable.
“We don’t believe that even with any amount of resources that would be something that could be feasibly managed.”
