{"id":445206,"date":"2026-05-12T16:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/445206\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T16:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:17:10","slug":"irelands-online-safety-boss-leaves-to-become-comreg-commissioner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/445206\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s online safety boss leaves to become ComReg commissioner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Niamh Hodnett is leaving one large regulatory watchdog body for another as the state grapples with what to do next on protecting kids from social media platforms\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Outgoing online safety commissioner Niamh Hodnett\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/88a78481-585f-4e0c-8e41-8442e00cf410.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Outgoing online safety commissioner Niamh Hodnett<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Ireland\u2019s Online Safety Commissioner, Niamh Hodnett, is to leave her role to become a third commissioner at the country\u2019s telecoms regulator, ComReg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Hodnett has been the Online Safety Commissioner, a role within media regulator Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n, since 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Her appointment, advertised at a salary ranging from \u20ac190,000 upwards, was announced by the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O\u2019Donovan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">ComReg already has two commissioners, chairman Garret Blaney and Robert Mourik. In late 2023, former Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon was appointed as the watchdog\u2019s third commissioner but left again shortly after a year. Dixon recently joined Mason Hayes &amp; Curran as a global digital regulatory consultant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Hodnett has previously worked for both public and private sector bodies, serving as chief legal and regulatory officer at the National Lottery and head of regulatory affairs at 3 Ireland. She also previously worked at ComReg as well as at legal firms Matheson and Mayer Brown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cAs Ireland\u2019s first online safety commissioner, Niamh had a vital role to play in bringing self-regulation of platforms to an end in leading on the application of Ireland\u2019s first online safety code,\u201d said Minister O\u2019Donovan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThis will be invaluable experience as she joins ComReg, where she will be regulating an industry of increasing importance to our economy, as we see a growing reliance on electronic communications services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The job appointment process was an open competition run by the state recruitment body, publicjobs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Hodnett\u2019s departure from Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n comes as the state continues to grapple with how to enforce rules around keeping kids safe online. Recent studies show that a majority of under-13s still use social media against platform rules, despite Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n announcing an era of enforcement in July of 2025. The government has hinted at a ban on young teens from internet services but has still to speed out specific plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Niamh Hodnett is leaving one large regulatory watchdog body for another as the state grapples with what to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,898,43],"class_list":["post-445206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}