Facebook at the Oireachtas: Out of our depth

Many years ago, a politically incorrect, but entertaining attorney general described Fianna Fáil backbenchers, discussing the Maastricht Treaty, as being “like a bunch of monkeys with screwdrivers looking into the back of a television”.

It may be unkind to regard tomorrow’s meeting of the Oireachtas communications committee, where Facebook executives will be interviewed, in the same light.

Despite that, it is very hard not to think that this may be a meeting of individuals with an unequal understanding of the issues in play — as it has been seen in virtually every meeting, anywhere, between elected parliamentarians and the representatives of today’s imperialists, commonly know as tech giants.

Mark Zuckerberg’s weave-and-dodge 30 minutes with a US Congress committee was a sharp example of this.

Our world is being changed to meet the commercial ambitions of these giants, so no matter how gratifying a national response might be, it will be unsuccessful.

A unified EU response is needed urgently, because, short of war, we do not face a greater challenge — and even that caveat is debatable.