Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I am sorry, I thought the Deputy was referring to her husband. Whatever the case, we should welcome the details if that is agreeable to the constituent, because it is these examples or practical experiences that help us to understand what is happening. It is very disturbing and the industry needs to take warning from us and the Government generally, if there is a suspicion that people are scamming or "skimming" as in former years in the banking industry where small percentile amounts were deducted across a large swathe of customers, amounting to a great deal of money. This is practised in casinos, I understand, as well. If this type of practice develops where software is being used to scam or skim people of their money, however inadvertently - there is no "stop" button to stop that type of elaborate programming - much more robust powers will need to be given to ComReg. Any incident that involves someone being deducted, having not subscribed to a service, is a very serious matter, and it behoves us as public representatives to bring such matters forcefully to the attention of ComReg. At one level the regulators are removed from us, but it is important that we, too, put them under pressure when we learn of individual cases of this type.

Deputy Nolan made the point that we must distinguish between the scam merchants and the reputable operators. This industry, largely speaking, is reputable. We must now ensure those who are not are chased out of the industry and we can enjoy some of the benefits that derive from it, as we do already, whether it is for weather forecasts, or people using maritime resources at the weekend to get relevant timely information. All of these services are valuable and of some societal benefit, I suspect, even where they are premium charged. We need to see their development.

I am conscious of the fact that I am standing in for the Minister, Deputy Ryan, but I am also the Minister of State with responsibility for science, technology and innovation. We can achieve great societal benefits as well as economic gains from using these technologies appropriately. The issue of cyber bullying is complicated and clearly comes under the aegis of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern. However, the industry has been promoting campaigns in this area, and making technology available that makes it easier for parents to stop, block or prevent this type of activity. It is very difficult and challenging behaviour.

It was with a certain foreboding that I allowed my young children to have mobile phones as presents recently. I am reassured to some extent, because it seems that children use mobile phones more for the games than the telephone calls, which surprised me. Again, there is an issue here as regards the advertising of games that may be downloaded. It is important that only appropriate games can be downloaded and we really are dependent on ComReg to ensure young children are not exposed to games that are inappropriate, whether relating to violence or other unsavoury aspects.

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