Latest news with #ReginaDoherty
Irish Daily Mirror
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
Ongoing investigation into Ticketmaster and Oasis branded 'Supersonic failure'
The length of time it is taking the consumer watchdog to investigate Ticketmaster following complaints over dodgy dynamic pricing for Oasis tickets has been branded a "Supersonic failure". The Irish Mirror can reveal that eight months after the investigation started, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has still not finished its work. The CCPC said on September 6 it had opened an investigation into Ticketmaster Ireland and its handling of the sale of Oasis tickets on the weekend of August 31, 2024. It followed a review of more than 100 complaints received by the CCPC. Tickets for Oasis' reunion gigs, which will take place in Croke Park on August 16 and 17, were snapped up despite fans' complaints about the prices. Tickets were to be priced from €86.50 to €150 before service charge. However, some ticket prices ended up rising to more than €400 due to Ticketmaster's "in-demand" prices. Despite the probe being opened in September, the CCPC has confirmed to The Irish Mirror the investigation has not yet finished. A spokeswoman said: "We will provide an update when we are in a position to do so." Fine Gael MEP Regina Doherty, who was one of the first to call for a probe, told us the length of time the CCPC investigation is taking is not acceptable. She said: "Eight months on and still no outcome is a total Supersonic failure. "The CCPC needs to stop dragging its heels and deliver clarity for the thousands of fans." Brian McHugh, chair of the CCPC, had stated last September that if consumer protection laws were broken, the body would take action.
Irish Independent
17-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
EU ‘blocking' Irish plan to make Big Tech firms vet ads for scams
According to Fine Gael MEP Regina Doherty, Big Tech companies could be required to ensure financial ads are coming from registered providers as part of the reform of the Payment Services Regulation which is currently underway. 'However it appears that the European Commission is blocking moves to include verification of financial services ads,' she said. The Department of Finance sent a proposal to Brussels on February 14, which pointed out that ads for financial services are often the first link in the fraud chain. 'Measures to ensure the legitimacy of financial services advertisements on social media platforms and search engines are therefore required,' it said. The requirement to verify the identity of advertisers, ensuring they are registered financial-service providers, would be limited to very large online platforms (VLOPs) or search engines. 'This is reflective of the fact that some of these entities, such as Google and Meta, are already doing this on a pilot basis in several countries,' the department added. Several members of the Government, including Taoiseach Micheál Martin, have been used in fake ads by scammers. At one point the Taoiseach took a High Court action against Google seeking information about the people behind fake ads for cryptocurrency that used his image. Ms Doherty said more than three in four Irish adults come across suspicious online activity each month, and fraudsters are exploiting citizens while platforms stand idly by. 'The EU Digital Services Act merely obliges platforms to react after the damage has already been done. That is not good enough. It is entirely avoidable harm,' she said. 'Such incidents are hard to track and almost impossible to rectify after they happen. The Digital Services Act provides requirements for platforms to take down harmful or illegal content once these have been reported. But it creates few proactive obligations on platforms prior to publication or even reporting by individuals. 'The position that platforms are not required to verify the veracity of financial advertisements undermines the importance of shared liability and responsibility between platforms, citizens and financial institutions that is vital if we are truly to make progress in tackling online scams.' ADVERTISEMENT The MEP said criminals involved in online scams should be held responsible, but so should the platforms that profit from user engagement. She added that it was time for the European Commission to 'wake up to the reality and put consumers first'. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported on an 'epidemic of scams' on social media platforms, with criminals 'flooding' Instagram and Facebook with fake ads and marketplace listings. It said Meta's social networks are the primary staging ground for fraud rings operating from China, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and the Philippines. In its memo to Brussels, the Department of Finance said its proposal had 'received a positive response from other member states and industry bodies'. The Financial Times has reported that about half of EU countries have expressed support for Ireland's idea. While the European Commission says it does not comment on issues relating to ongoing negotiations on legislative proposals, the FT quoted EU diplomats as saying that the European Commission's believes making Big Tech vet online ads would contravene the Digital Services Act.
Engadget
08-05-2025
- Business
- Engadget
Ireland is pitching a law to force big tech companies to vet ads before publication
Ireland has pitched a law to force tech companies to vet ads before publishing them, according to reporting by Financial Times . This is part of a larger push by the EU Commission to make tech entities responsible for financial fraud that occurs on their platforms. It also comes as President Trump has begun pushing the EU to scale back regulation of big American tech companies . While a proposal by the EU Commission would indeed put companies on the hook for financial fraud, Ireland's plan hopes to get ahead of all that. It looks to stop fraudulent ads before they are even published. The Irish finance ministry submitted an amendment to the current EU proposal that would force tech platforms to check the legitimacy of advertisers before posting their ads. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. The amendment would also make it so only registered financial service providers could post these types of ads. The Bank of Ireland says that more than 75 percent of losses last year came from investment fraud that were often linked to ads placed on social media. These ads can be posted at any time and, more importantly, taken down at any time. This allows the publishers to avoid legal scrutiny after the damage has been done. Data indicates that online scammers defrauded Europeans out of nearly $5 billion in 2022 . "We can't leave glaringly obvious holes in legislation that are allowing criminals to defraud people of their life savings," said Regina Doherty, an Irish lawmaker. Google has declined to discuss this measure, but told FT that it fights "financial fraud in ads through our tools, people and policies." It is true that it operates a financial services certification program to help combat fraud. Meta has declined to comment. We've pinged both companies and will update this post if we hear back. Around half of EU countries have expressed support for Ireland's proposed amendment, though there is a hurdle to overcome. The EU Commission already has a provision in the Digital Services Act that says that tech companies aren't required to broadly monitor content, though proponents of the Irish initiative have countered that the requirement to vet advertisers could be designed in such a way that conforms with current law.
Irish Examiner
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Irish MEP calls on EU to ban airlines charging 'sky-high' fees for parents to sit with their children
An Irish MEP is calling for urgent action at European level to end "sky-high" fees for family seating on flights. Regina Doherty wants the EU to end the practice of airlines charging parents extra to sit with their children on flights and is demanding legislative change to guarantee no child is forced to sit alone mid-flight because of "unfair" seat fees. She said the issue related to child safeguarding, adding families going abroad this summer should not be penalised for wanting to sit together. "It's unacceptable that parents must pay extra to ensure their children sit beside them. "For those with additional needs, being apart from a parent can be traumatic. All children should have the right to sit with families without extra costs," the Fine Gael MEP said. While some airlines, like Ryanair, offer free seating for children under 12 once the adult pays for an allocated seat, no EU-wide rule mandates this. Ms Doherty — who sits on the European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, which is known for defending consumer rights across the EU — is pushing for legislative change to ensure consistent rights across all EU carriers. "Voluntary policies aren't enough. We need clear laws so parents aren't forced to pay premiums for their child's comfort and safety," she said. This proposal comes as part of a wider push across Europe to make air travel more transparent and family-friendly. Last year, the White House proposed additional seating fees for families should be banned in the US. The plans put forward by the US Transportation Department would require airlines to seat parents with children under the age of 13 on flights without an extra charge if adjacent seats are available when the trip is booked. At the time US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg said seating adults with their younger children "is common sense and also seems like something that should be standard practice". "As someone who has personally experienced flying with toddlers," Mr Buttigieg said he knew first-hand that families traveling with little ones do not need added difficulties. Read More 'Alarming' increase in levels of forever chemical TFA found in European wines
Irish Times
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Michael McDowell: There is no ‘right' to subvert women's freedom to have their own events and spaces
The decision by the UK's supreme court on the meaning of the term 'woman' for the purposes of its Equality Act created a small but noisy reaction among trans activists. The court held that 'the concept of sex is binary' – that is, there is a male and a female sex. This outcome is reassuring for many people who have become increasingly alarmed and bewildered by the claims of trans ideologists that gender is, somehow, entirely separate from sex and is a social and psychological construct rather than observable reality. In Ireland, the Oireachtas enacted the Gender Recognition Act 2015 with an understanding that sex was not divorced from gender and that a person issued with a gender recognition certificate would if he was previously considered a man thereafter be regarded as a woman or if previously considered a woman thereafter be considered a man. The Irish legislation was unusually deficient, in my view, in that it required no form of corroboration whatever from those applying to have their gender legally changed. UK law only recognises male and female genders. The UK's Gender Recognition Act 2004 gave people with gender dysphoria legal recognition based on objective evidence of dysphoria. READ MORE Trans activists took satisfaction from their legislative achievement in Ireland, which eschewed any need for objective corroboration by people applying for gender recognition certificates. However, the Irish act, which was entirely binary in effect and analysis, was insufficient to satisfy the ideological aims of the trans activist community, however large it may be. By exertion of well-placed influence, they pressed forward with plans to replace the term 'women who are pregnant' with 'people who are pregnant' in social legislation. Official publications were urged to use non-sexual language to describe many aspects of womanhood. The HSE has used the term 'chestfeeding' in official documentation. Perhaps the high tide of the trans ideological wave came in 2022 with the evidence tendered by the government-appointed leader of Seanad Éireann, Regina Doherty , (now an MEP) that there were at least nine genders in existence , without limiting that number. To the best of my knowledge, neither she nor any of her colleagues in government ever attempted to enumerate these other genders, despite many requests that they should do so. She told The Irish Times that she feared that Ireland might have 'a summer of discontent' ahead of us, suggesting that a campaign to reverse the binary Gender Recognition Act 2015 might be launched by a 'very small but growing campaign'. And so the trans ideological train rolled on until it ran straight into the buffers in the form of massive rejection in the Family and Care referendums in March last year . Quite apart from the gross ineptitude and dishonesty deployed by the government at the time and its state-funded NGO allies in proposing those constitutional amendments, there was at the heart of the people's decision an antipathy towards removal from the Constitution of recognition for the value and status of motherhood itself. For many people, the significance of sex understood as a binary concept is reality – not an emotional or intellectual construct. Even the term 'same-sex attraction' means something. Among many gay and lesbian Irish people, whether married or not, there is a fundamental unease about their equal rights – as vindicated most recently in the marriage equality referendum – being handcuffed to an ideology which seeks to superimpose imagined genders over those of male and female. It is now years since I wrote here about our capacity to deal with gender dysphoria on a kind and a reasonable basis socially and legally, without abandoning the fundamental social and legal realities of sexuality, masculinity, femininity and motherhood. The mantra 'trans rights are human rights' is chanted in pursuit of trans ideological goals. For most people, the idea that a 6ft 3in man who may or may not have obtained a gender recognition certificate has a 'right' to participate in, say, women's rugby competitions is bizarre. Single-sex sports exist to reflect physical capacities and realities; they do not create such realities or infringe the rights of others who seek to avoid or deny such realities. There is no 'right' to subvert the freedom of women to have facilities and events confined to their own sex. There is nothing inhuman about asserting the contrary. The idea that a person convicted of rape and sexual assault against women as a man should have the right to be incarcerated as though a woman is so patently counterintuitive as to have done serious damage to Nicola Sturgeon 's Scottish government. David Cullinane TD was forced into an abject and humiliating apology and retraction of his initial statement that the UK decision was 'common sense' . While Sinn Féin is free to enforce party discipline over its members, the knee-jerk response to trans ideology and rejection of what most people would consider as common sense is part of a wider and more ingrained capacity for political, historical and social self-delusion.
