Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I thank Senator van Turnhout and those who tabled this timely motion, and welcome the fact that we are having this debate on an issue that is of substantial concern to me and to the Government and which we are currently addressing.

I listened with interest to the previous speakers who outlined in great detail the need for ongoing strong measures to combat child abuse images, commonly referred to as child pornography, on the Internet. The protection of children from sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, including measures to combat child abuse images on the Internet, is crucial. We all abhor the evil trade in illegal images of children being sexually abused and exploited. I can assure Senators that the Government is fully committed to fighting child sexual abuse, including child sexual abuse images on the Internet. This commitment is demonstrated in the fact that Ireland has signed up to the various international instruments referred to in the motion. The implications for policy and the Government in the whole area of the Internet are complex, since the situation is evolving quickly and is subject to frequent significant technological change.

There are no easy solutions to these issues. The Internet is a worldwide phenomenon, as everyone knows, with no borders and no single organisation controlling it. International co-operation is therefore vital. Every country is struggling to deal with these issues, as evidenced through the various international instruments that touch on this sphere. Technological change is so rapid that policy is almost inevitably in a situation of continuous catch-up.

My Department has been conducting a wide-ranging review of the law on sexual offences, and I expect to bring legislative proposals, in the form of a sexual offences Bill, to the Government in the coming months. This will include measures to enhance the protection of children against sexual abuse and exploitation, including exploitation through prostitution and child pornography. These will facilitate full compliance with the criminal law provisions of the UN and the Council of Europe, as well as the European Union instruments referred to in the motion. I say "full compliance" because, in fact, much of the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography has already been implemented through the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 and the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008. For example, our trafficking legislation criminalised the sale of persons, including children, for any purpose. Also, my Department has been advised by the Department of Health that the Adoption Act 2010 meets other requirements of the optional protocol. Similarly, many of the criminal law provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, also known as the Lanzarote Convention, are already covered by the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2006. The EU directive on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography was adopted only recently in December 2011. Ireland's participation in the adoption and implementation of this measure had been approved by the Government and the Oireachtas. The deadline for transposition of the directive by way of national measures is 18 December 2013. As with the UN and Council of Europe instruments mentioned, many of the directive's provisions have been implemented in existing legislation.

There is an existing self-regulatory framework for Internet service providers in Ireland which aims to combat illegal child pornography content online. Members of the public who encounter such material may report it to the hotline.ie service of the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland. If the material is hosted in Ireland and deemed to be illegal and in contravention of Irish law, ISPAI members are obliged to remove such material. The Garda Síochána is automatically advised of any such instances in order that it can follow up, if appropriate. If the material is hosted in another jurisdiction, it is notified to the Internet hotline in that jurisdiction and-or the relevant law enforcement agencies for follow-up action, with the aim of having illegal content taken down. My predecessors and I have continually drawn the public's attention to the existence of the hotline.ie service. The first and most important response to illegal child abuse images on the Internet is to track down the source and have the material removed. This focus on so-called "notice and take down" is a key measure stressed in the new EU directive on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography. The hotline.ie service, with the Garda Síochána, plays a vital role in this regard.

There are some important facts to consider in contextualising the debate on child sexual abuse material on the Internet. In only a handful of cases has illegal child sexual abuse material been found to be hosted in Ireland. In the first case in 2009 illegal web content reported to hotline.ie was found to be hosted in Ireland in an incident in which a website owned by a small Irish business had been hacked into. A Garda investigation discovered that because of weak log-on passwords, the site had been hacked into by criminals outside the jurisdiction. In 2010 there were two cases of "mirroring" illegal content in Ireland. They involved large website mirroring services with servers located in Ireland. Although the USA was the actual source of these child sexual abuse images, this illegal content was replicated here. The material was reported to the United States where it was removed. As a result, it also disappeared from the mirrored websites hosted in Ireland.

There has been a continuing downward trend of confirmed illegal content reported by the public to the hotline.ie service, with 186 such reports in 2010 compared with a peak of 284 in 2007. This is despite the fact that the number of reports of suspected illegal content has continued to rise. The total number of such reports was 2,646 in 2010, representing a 25% increase on the 2009 figure. At the very least, this suggests illegal material is being encountered less often by the average Internet user in Ireland. This correlates with international experience in recent times.

The Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 provides penalties for child pornography offences which I consider to be robust, subject to one comment. The offence of knowingly possessing child pornography attracts a maximum prison sentence of five years or a maximum fine of €6,350, or both. I do not regard this fine as adequate. This is an issue that will be addressed in the sexual offences Bill. The maximum penalty for knowingly producing, distributing, printing, publishing, importing, exporting, showing or selling child pornography is a maximum prison sentence of 14 years or an unlimited fine, or both.

The Garda Síochána's domestic violence and sexual assault investigation unit is responsible for the investigation of criminal offences involving child pornography. Any suspected offence involving the abuse of children through the Internet or other technology, whether originating in this jurisdiction or coming to the attention of the Garda Síochána through international agencies or by any other means, is subject to thorough investigation. Specialist computer software is available to the Garda Síochána and utilised to gather information and intelligence on possible suspects operating in this jurisdiction. The resources available for the investigation of this type of crime are continuously monitored by the Garda authorities to ensure they are sufficient.

There is a vigorous and ongoing debate internationally about the merits of employing blocking mechanisms or filters to prevent access to either illegal or harmful content on the Internet. It is important to note that blocking systems will only prevent inadvertent access by Internet users to illegal content and the use of such systems should not give a false sense of security to Internet users.

Those who are against blocking systems fear that they may undermine freedom of expression online and lead to what is described as mission creep, where blocking initially relates only to web pages containing illegal child pornography content but potentially could be extended to any web pages which governments might find objectionable. I do not regard this as a credible reason for inaction. In the past decade blocking systems by Internet service providers in respect of child abuse images have been implemented in several jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Finland. In the majority of these cases such blocking systems were set up on the basis of a voluntary opt-in approach by individual ISPs, rather than a legislative mandate on all ISPs. In addition, many individual well known Internet companies implement their own filtering systems, for example, Google in respect of search results and Facebook in respect of uploaded images.

On the other side of the argument, the German Government decided last year to repeal a law on Internet blocking of child sexual abuse images it had previously introduced because it considered that deletion of the images should be the priority and because of the success of Internet hotlines and police forces internationally in ensuring child abuse images were being removed in a much more timely manner. In 2011 a majority of the Dutch Parliament supported the Dutch Minister of Security and Justice in his decision not to require Dutch ISPs to block access to web pages containing child sexual abuse images. This was on the grounds that other Internet services, rather than websites, were being used to distribute such images and that as a result, blocking websites containing child sexual abuse images on the basis of a blacklist could no longer serve as a reliable and efficient way to contribute to fighting child sexual abuse images on the Internet.

Under a voluntary agreement brokered by the European Commission with GSM Alliance Europe, the association representing European mobile phone operators, all mobile phone operators in Ireland implement a form of blocking on their mobile Internet service which prevents access to websites identified as containing child pornography content. This is important since a key ongoing development in Internet technology is the shift to persons using mobile devices such as smart-phones to access the internet.

Article 25 of the new directive specifically relates to measures against websites containing or disseminating child pornography. First, it provides that member states shall take measures to ensure the prompt removal of web pages containing or disseminating child pornography hosted in their territory and will seek to ensure the removal of such pages hosted outside their territory. This reflects the fact that the primary aim of all efforts in respect of child abuse imagery on the Internet should be to ensure it is removed at source.

Second, Article 25 provides that member states may take measures to block access to web pages containing or disseminating child pornography content. It further provides that any such measures should be set by transparent procedures and provide adequate safeguards, in particular to ensure such restrictions will be limited to what is necessary and proportionate and that users will be informed of the reason for the restriction. The directive also specifies that these safeguards should include the possibility of judicial redress. I am giving a commitment to this House that blocking will be fully considered in the development of the planned sexual offences Bill and in line with our obligations to implement properly the EU directive in this jurisdiction.

While blocking is of assistance in preventing inadvertent access on the Internet to child abuse imagery, it is not enough. It cannot adequately deal with the transfer of material of this nature via peer-to-peer file sharing systems, usenet and e-mail, rather than on standard web pages. How best to implement Article 25 of the recently adopted EU directive is under consideration. This debate is a valuable contribution to our deliberations on this very important issue.

It is the Government's view that everything practical and effective that can be done should be done to address the evil of child pornography. It has correctly been said by some speakers that every such image is evidence of a crime scene and records the sexual exploitation and abuse of children. In an Internet world with no territorial boundaries and an extraordinary evolving technological ecology the children presented on such sites continue to be abused and their images viewed across the world. The removal of such sites is crucial. Because of the extraterritorial dimension, international co-operation is essential to counteract access to child pornography and end the continued exploitation of children.

This is an important issue concerning the welfare of children on which there is no substantive disagreement among Members of the House. As I said, a great deal has been done in our legislation to address this evil. Further steps must now be taken pursuant to the recently adopted European directive. I, therefore, ask Senators not to divide on this important issue and to unite to support the Government's amended motion as a clear and unambiguous signal of a united commitment to the protection not only of our children but also children across the world.

The amendment tabled on behalf of the Government is not brought forward for any technical or pedantic reason, or in any way to disadvantage those who, in good faith, have tabled the motion which initiated the debate. It is merely to provide the detail necessary with regard to the international instruments to which we are a party and to make express and important reference to the EU directive which provides architecture to be put in place across the European Union to address this evil. It provides important guidance on the final measures that should be included in our legislation on sexual offences which is being developed. That legislation will go a great deal further than addressing this issue. It will also address a number of recommendations contained in Oireachtas reports, one of which dates back to 2006. Another report which contains recommendations is the that of the committee of which others and I were members in the previous Dáil which dealt with the issue of children's constitutional rights.

I will comment in response to the reference to an all-Ireland child protection framework. This is something of which I am very conscious, particularly where there are differences between the legislative architecture in the State and that in Northern Ireland. Issues relating to child abuse, child pornography and trafficking have been the subject of discussions between the Northern Ireland Minister of Justice, Mr. David Ford, and me. These discussions have been very valuable and I hope we will move to a position in which we will have similar laws on the island of Ireland in the area of child protection and in which we will work in harmony together to ensure the maximum protection possible to ensure the welfare of our children.