The State’s media regulator had to spend more than €5.8 million in one year alone when contesting and defending legal cases taken against it.
Many of the legal cases, which are included in Coimisiún na Meán’s 2024 accounts, are being taken by the social media networks the State agency is trying to regulate.
The regulator’s legal bill is set to climb higher, with Coimisiún na Meán confirming that, as of this month, it is facing 12 separate legal actions.
In 2024, Coimisiún na Meán spent €2.85 million on costs relating to four legal actions being taken against it.
This included more than €1 million that was set aside by the media regulator as “an estimate of liabilities that may arise to third parties”. The State agency also spent another €2.95 million on legal advice in 2024.
In its accounts, the media regulator said that, due to the nature of its work, it was often involved in legal proceedings, “principally judicial review proceedings on its decisions”.
The total €5.8 million spent on legal costs in 2024 is an increase from the €1.6 million spent in the agency’s first year. Coimisiún na Meán was set up in March 2023.
The legal bill for 2025 is not publicly available, but it is likely to be higher as the number of judicial reviews taken against the media regulator has since increased.
Last week John Evans, the digital services commissioner at Coimisiún na Meán, confirmed it was facing seven judicial reviews from controversial social network X.
A Coimisiún na Meán spokesman said the figures for legal costs in 2024 “do not relate only to actions taken by X”. The spokesman said it was facing a total of 12 legal cases.
This week the High Court granted permission to X to appeal a judgment dismissing its challenge, initiated in late 2024, against Coimisiún na Meán’s online safety code.
X, which has its European headquarters in Dublin, was recently criticised for its role hosting and generating intimate AI-created images on its social network through the chatbot Grok. The platform says it has disabled these features.
An Garda Síochána has since confirmed it is investigating 200 alleged incidents of child sex abuse material related to Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) tool.
Ireland has been lobbying at European Union level for a new Child Sex Abuse Regulation that would oblige service providers to report and prevent the presence and sharing of child sex abuse material on their platform.