Mr. Paul C. Dwyer:

In Ireland we have the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act and the Criminal Damage Act. Legislation dates back to posts and telegraphs and has not kept up with the technology now in place. It is multijurisdictional, so we need to consider the European Convention on Cybercrime, which creates offences with regard to copyright infringement and the illicit material of children, and creates a level playing field between countries. The UK, the United States, Australia and Japan have all signed and ratified it. We signed it more than ten years ago but we still have not ratified it. Without such legislation we do not even have a foundation to start working in the area.

Cyberbullying is one issue but these matters do not work in silos. Protecting children is also about protecting them from cyber-predators who also frequent these sites. An interesting aspect of the legislation is that it holds directors personally accountable and liable if they have not done everything they should and could have done to prevent a crime being orchestrated through their facilities. Let us think about this in the context of the providers we are discussing. It would focus their attention more than eye-watering fines or bad press if they were personally accountable for not preventing these incidents from happening, not that they committed themselves but that they did not prevent them from happening. One can almost draw a Venn diagram of cyber-predators. We even see the online grooming of autistic children by cyber-criminals who want to use their very special abilities and brains for hacking. The types of websites mentioned, which are not the big ones but which are only a stone's throw from Ireland in countries such as Latvia, feed predators and bullies - the people we refer to as cyber-scum - and they should be made accountable in law because they do not take down material or co-operate in any way, shape or form. It is wrong to keep pointing at the big guys all the time.