Jillian van Turnhout (Independent)

I move:

"That Seanad Éireann:

- Notes the adoption by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, on 13 December 2011, of the Directive on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA. Among wide-ranging provisions in relation to criminal offences and sanctions in the area of sexual abuse and exploitation of children, the Directive requires all EU Member States to take the necessary measures to ensure the prompt removal of any webpages containing or disseminating child abuse material hosted on servers within their jurisdiction. The Directive also, with appropriate safeguards, permits Member States to take measures to block access to internet users within their territory of webpages containing or disseminating child abuse material hosted on servers outside their jurisdiction.

- Notes that while Ireland has arrangements in place to secure the removal of child abuse material on domestic servers, and reports material found outside the jurisdiction via the INHOPE network, Ireland has not sanctioned a system which would allow the same material hosted overseas to be blocked, where removal proves difficult or takes an unreasonable length of time.

- Recognises that "[C]hild abuse images are not just images. Despite the fact that most of them can be found in a "virtual world", one must never forget that behind every image, there is at least one child who has been sexually abused in real life. Child abuse images involve a series of crimes ranging from the solicitation, corruption or trafficking of children for sexual purposes and various forms of sexual abuse perpetrated on children, to the distribution, collection and consultation of images of the abuse committed." [Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, Report of the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, "Combating 'child abuse images' through committed, transversal and internationally co-ordinated action, Doc 12720, 19 September 2011]

- Recalls with approval Ireland's ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on 28 September 1992 and welcomes that Ireland promotes and supports activities aimed at the removal of webpages containing or disseminating child abuse material in Ireland and shares this information with other EU countries through the INHOPE network and through cooperation with Europol and Interpol.

- Calls on the Minister for Justice and Equality to:

1. Commit to bring forward a proposal to Government to ratify the United Nations Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, signed by Ireland on 7 September 2000;

2. Commit to bring forward a proposal to Government to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, signed by Ireland on 25 October 2007;

3. Bring forward legislation, without delay, to implement the Directive on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, which, legislation should:

a) Underpin efforts to combat sexual abuse and the sexual exploitation of children and child abuse material in cyber space;

b) Ensure a victim identification database and management system is in place which is directed at identifying child victims, prosecuting offenders and disrupting crime networks;

c) Underpin measures already in place which seek to ensure the removal of webpages containing child abuse material hosted in Ireland;

d) Direct that Irish internet service providers put in place a system whereby child abuse material, as defined by Section 2 (1) of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998, hosted overseas be blocked where removal proves difficult or is likely to take an unreasonable length of time; and

e) Be guided by transparent procedures and provide adequate safeguards, in particular to ensure that the restriction is limited to what is necessary and proportionate, and that users are informed of the reason for the restriction."

I welcome the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, to the House. Having had the pleasure of working with the Minister when Opposition spokesperson on children, I am confident of his commitment to children's rights and child protection. I am happy he is here to debate this important motion tabled by the Independent group.

This motion is about child pornography as clearly defined under section 2 of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998. The definition in the Act includes any visual representation that shows a child engaged in or being witness to explicit sexual activity and where the dominant characteristic of visual representation is the depiction for a sexual purpose of the genital or anal region of a child. Child abuse material on the Internet is child pornography, but it is also so much more than a single definition can encompass. The image or depiction is a culmination of, at best one and more than likely a series, of the most serious criminal offences known to the Statute Book, including rape, incest, assault, sadism and bestiality. For each child abuse image produced, it can be expected that numerous offences are committed, as the online distribution of child abuse images exponentially multiplies the number of offences against the integrity of the child. A child abuse image is a crime scene. It is a digital record of sexual abuse being perpetrated against a child.

According to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, a staggering 69% of the victims depicted in child abuse images are under the age of ten. The sheer depravity and calculation of the offenders is such that they are increasingly targeting children at pre-speaking age because they cannot articulate the abuse they are experiencing. Shockingly, we were told by an Interpol officer at our briefing last week that some of the children depicted in these images are so young that the nub of their umbilical cord is still visible.

Why are we proposing blocking? One can say that is not where all child abuse is happening. Statistics show how abuse is often by somebody trusted and known to the child. It happens in the home by a close relative or a trusted family friend. The State should put its resources towards ensuring those children are protected. I also acknowledge that much of the exchange of information of this child abuse material happens off the Internet via other web devices such as FTP protocols, and this is where Garda Síochána resources need to be targeted. Our motion is to ensure that this crime can be blocked so that all our resources do not go towards this.

The motion is intended to address a specific reality, that there is a significant volume of requests made to access child abuse material on the Internet, intentionally or accidentally, through standard web pages throughout the world. In Norway, which has a slightly bigger population than Ireland and which has blocking in place, they get 12,000 requests a day for these pages, that is, approximately 4.5 million requests a year. In New Zealand, which has it in place, from February 2010 to November 2011, they blocked 13.5 million requests. In the UK, BT's network alone blocks 40,000 requests a day.

Some say its prevalence is decreasing on the Internet. To give the House an idea of figures of what we speak, in 1995, which often is considered year zero for the Internet as the boom had not fully erupted, Interpol calculated there were 4,000 child abuse images worldwide. Recent figures suggest that the number has multiplied considerably. Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre's database states that there are 850,000 distinct child abuse images stored in the UK alone. It is not an issue of us trying to block a small number.

I do not contend that blocking will sort it all out, but it sends a strong signal. Removal at source is the best solution, and where we can do that, as Ireland is trying to do, I support it. However, where material is hosted on sites outside the jurisdiction, it is not within our power to ensure removal at source. We are forced to rely on other jurisdictions applying the same standard for removal at source as we apply in Ireland. The difficulty can be in rogue states where co-operation is not forthcoming or where it is not done in a reasonable time.

The blocking proposed in our motion would give us this control and ensure there is consistency in our policy on child abuse material on the Internet. It would send out a clear message that child abuse material, whether its source is domestic or foreign, will not be tolerated in Ireland. This deterrent value cannot be overstated.

I do not believe we know the full extent of child abuse material available in Ireland given the lack of public awareness of www.hotline.ie, where the public can report suspected illegal content encountered on the Internet.

From our research of this issue in preparation for today, it is very much a spiral of abuse that takes place which starts with curiosity, but it has been proven to be a progressive descent, from curiosity to becoming a trader. If one was trying to equate it to something else, on the road here each day there is a new speed sign that tells me if I am going over the speed limit and it deters me, and I slow down. Every time it works. It is about having a deterrent.

Those countries blocking are: Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Malta, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. All the mobile phone operators in Ireland are blocking as part of an EU agreement. The UK, as I stated, is blocking. That means Northern Ireland is blocking all of this child abuse material.

I want to share a case with the House. It came to light 14 months ago. It is a case where a child abuse image came to the attention of the US authorities as part of a domestic child pornography investigation. The image depicted a two year old victim who was unknown to the US victim identification database. A member of the investigation team recognised in the background of the image that a doll was not a traditional doll but a Dutch doll, and they contacted the Dutch authorities. The Dutch authorities broadcast an image of the face of the child and the parents came forward. On investigation, they found that a 27 year old male nursery worker was perpetrating the crime of abuse against that child. On further investigation - they had to call all the parents together to a hotel on a Sunday afternoon to tell them their children may have been at risk in this child care place - the accused man has admitted to abusing 87 children aged two and a half and younger. His partner is accused of facilitating child abuse and distributing this material, and an additional 11 men are accused of having shared and distributed the images. The case will go to trial this year. This one image led to 87 child victims being identified, which is why a victim identification database is so important.

We tabled the motion here today, not because we do not acknowledge that there are other child protection measures that the State needs to have in place. We need to ensure we put a focus there. We also need to focus on child abuse within the home or by trusted family members or friends of the family in the off-web services. However, we need to ensure that child abuse material that continues to be traded and transmitted over the Internet is blocked. The fact that a child knows or believes images of his or her abuse remains and continues to be spread on the Internet can lead to an increased feeling of helplessness. We must say to children that we do not accept these images on the Internet and we do not accept what has happened to them. We must send a clear signal that we want to prevent any further publication of these images. That, for me, is the real reason behind this motion.

If child abuse images are on the Internet, Irish people are looking at them and we need to block it. When we block it, what will come up is a simple page stating that this is illegal and one may e-mail an address that follows because one needs to ensure it is transparent and in line. In Norway and New Zealand where they did this, the number of e-mails received was zero.