Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Law Reform Commission's report came before Cabinet around this time last year, but I am open to correction on the actual date. I have been informed it was in December 2016. There were two aspects to that. One is the criminal aspect, and the then Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, outlined to Cabinet that she was proceeding with legislation. The present Minister, Deputy Flanagan, spoke about that here earlier. The other aspect was the digital safety commissioner. The agreement of Cabinet at the time was to have a Cabinet sub-committee and senior officials group work on that. The Ministers for Children and Youth Affairs and for Justice and Equality and I met last November to see how we could progress and move this agenda forward, not just in respect of the Law Reform Commission report but also in respect of the previous report, the ICGA report. On foot of that we agreed to establish this forum to take place on 8 March to bring all the players together because there are many aspects to this. Some of what is in that ICGA report is being acted upon at a European level and the implementation will come from EU directives. It makes more sense for us if it happens at European level because then it is applied uniformly across the whole European Union. My colleagues and I engage with this issue.

To clarify something I said to Senator Noone about Minister of State with responsibility for EU digital Single Market, Deputy Breen, the digital Single Market comes under the remit of the Department of the Taoiseach and crosses four Departments. We want to see what is happening at the Commission.

We also want to see how we can implement the very good work that is being done in our schools more broadly across the community. The office for Internet safety is currently doing a tremendous job and I acknowledge that Deputy Rabbitte has circulated material on foot of what has been produced by that office, which is excellent. All members have a responsibility to begin communicating such information.