The State’s regulators charged with overseeing the US tech and social media giants based in the Republic have privately warned the Government their offices are under-resourced and said extra staff were needed to meet an expanding remit.
Ireland’s central role “enforcing” Europe’s digital rules and regulations “cannot be delivered without an adequate level of resources”, four watchdogs warned recently.
In a joint letter to senior officials in the Department of the Taoiseach last month, the regulators appealed for additional funding to respond to a growing workload.
The letter, signed by the heads of the Data Protection Commission (DPC), Coimisiún na Meán, ComReg and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), pushed the Government to address “resourcing concerns”.
“The enactment of several major pieces of EU legislation governing the digital space has led to a significant increase in the regulatory remit,” the regulators said in a December 9th letter.
The correspondence said extra staff at senior levels would be needed to keep pace.
New regulations at European Union-level include the Digital Services Act, which aims to clamp down on the spread of illegal content online, and rules governing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by private companies.
Coimisiún na Meán, the State’s online safety and media regulator, has been asked to contribute to a European Commission investigation into the Grok feature that allowed users on the X platform to “undress” images of people, including children, without their consent.
Previous Irish governments faced sustained criticism of failing to staff properly Ireland’s data protection watchdog in the run up to the introduction of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018.
The budget and headcount of the DPC has increased substantially over the last decade.
The DPC is responsible for conducting investigations into any suspected breaches of strict EU data protection rules by US tech and social media giants, such as Facebook-owner Meta, X and Google, because their European headquarters are based in the State.
Digital privacy campaigners have always accused the DPC of going too soft on tech multinationals, a charge the regulator has consistently rejected.
It is understood new EU digital regulations and the increasing volume of complaints submitted to State regulators have put pressure on the workforce of Irish watchdogs.
The recent correspondence signals a possible budget tussle between the Government and the regulatory bodies over the coming months.
“We would like to reiterate our call for the provision of adequate resources for each regulator as an essential prerequisite to ensuring Ireland can retain its important role as being a regulatory hub of choice for digital industries,” the letter said.
The correspondence, addressed to John Shaw, assistant secretary general at the Department of the Taoiseach, was released to The Irish Times in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
“We would welcome a clear commitment from relevant departments to providing additional resources, particularly at senior level,” the letter said.
The letter was signed by Jeremy Godfrey, chairman of Coimisiún na Meán, Des Hogan, DPC chair, Garrett Blaney, chair of ComReg, and CCPC chair Brian McHugh.
Allocating sufficient funding for staff was a “key prerequisite” to each regulator being able to “continue to discharge their responsibilities in a timely and efficient manner”, the letter said.
Senior civil servants discussed the request for additional funding with officials from the four regulators last month, a Department of the Taoiseach spokesman said.
The Government was committed to “ensuring our digital regulators are sufficiently resourced to deliver a modern, cohesive regulatory framework that is responsive to the evolving digital age”, the spokesman said.