Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will say a few general words about the Bill and the about structure of the committee. First, I am grateful to be here. It has been a long three years since April 2017 and the Private Members' Bill. Not too many get in sight of the finishing line and I hope we can get it there.

As the Chairman rightly said, the Bill builds on the work of the LRC and deals with regulating a public space, that is, cyberspace, which is largely unregulated now. It has many arms and it deals with the issue of online bullying and harassment, and the issue of exchanging intimate images, so-called "revenge porn", among others.

It is not comprehensive and all of us will have received submissions to try to make this Bill as comprehensive as we can. I am conscious that even when this is enacted, there will be issues that require will further consideration. I am aware the original LRC report, for example, wanted to deal with the non-justice area of a regulator. That is being progressed in different legislation now. People have contacted me and I am trying to explain that to them. They should be aware of that.

I am grateful to the Minister for Justice for accepting the framework of the Bill and agreeing to enact it. An extensive redrafting of the Bill is proposed by the Minister, in essence, to achieve the same objectives, by and large, but in a different style. There is now a conventional and evolving style. Even some of the proposed amendments regarding the location of Long Tittle and Short Title have changed in my time in the House. There is, however, a prevailing style now for justice legislation. As long as the elements of the Bill are achieved, the language used is secondary, as far as I am concerned, although I have a general view that we should, as far as practicable, speak and write in plain English and where we can say something directly, we should not, as far as we can avoid, put cross-referencing to legislation where it is not necessary so people can read legislation and know what it means. We will get to the specifics of that when we are dealing with it. I thank the Chairman for supporting this and for meeting others who are lobbying for the Bill. Let us see if we can get it done.