Professor Conor O'Mahony:

There were many questions and I might not get to all of them. On the question of sanctions, I echo Dr. McAuley's point about their use as a deterrent. There is that value to them. It was mentioned that some of the sanctions seen in other jurisdictions were very much at the higher end. If those were put in place in Ireland and providers realised that the consequences could be significant financially if they fell foul of them, we would create a strong deterrent.

Deterrents, by their nature, will never catch everything but they have an important role to play in focusing the mind of certain providers in respect of the nature of their obligations.

On the question of remedies, the remedy is emphasised in the international guidance from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Council of Europe. The idea that there should be an individual remedy for the individual child is stressed by both organisations. Financial compensation is obviously one version of that. The idea is that where the service provider has failed in its obligations and children have suffered harm as a result, there would be a possibility of redress on foot of it. This serves to have a deterrent effect in the first instance because there is potentially a further financial consequence for the service provider and it provides a degree of redress for the person affected. Mentioned several times, particularly by Dr. Milosevic, has been the idea of supports for children affected. From a children's rights perspective, where children do suffer harm, particularly the very serious harm that can occur online, providing them with the necessary therapeutic services and supports is a really important part of the picture. The reality in Ireland is that, across the spectrum of ways in which children suffer harm, we do not always provide very good services to children who experience sexual abuse or other such forms of harm. Therefore, there is a lot that needs to be done to improve the services. That applies in the digital environment as well as in the everyday world. Perhaps fines or damages awarded against service providers who fall foul of their obligations could be channelled into supporting those kinds of services or access thereto. Perhaps this could be explored further.