Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Laoghaire for bringing forward this Private Members' Bill. Fianna Fáil will be supporting the Bill and would always support an initiative such as this. We will be tabling amendments on Committee Stage.

Ireland is completely behind the curve in regulating and legislating for the online and social media sphere. As it stands, the online world is largely self-regulated. The recommendation for the establishment of a digital safety commissioner was made by the Law Reform Commission back in 2016. Rather than act on this recommendation, the Taoiseach stated that he would be loath to go down that road. The Taoiseach called on the tech companies to step up to the plate and do more to protect the people from the dangers of online intimidation, bullying and so on. The Government has effectively washed its hands of any obligation to protect its citizens from the online world.

Since the commission published its recommendations, we have seen a number of horrendous examples of the dangers of the online world. There was the case of Matthew Horan, the 26 year-old who used numerous social media sites to gather thousands of images of children as young as nine. There is Nicole Fox Fenton, the 21 year-old woman who took her life after endless torments from cyber bullies. There is the awful abuse suffered by former Senator, Lorraine Higgins. There is the case in Belfast of a 14 year-old girl whose nude photograph was posted on Facebook numerous times.

I thank the Minister for his statement and welcome what he said yesterday. He and I stand together on one thing. The reason I am passionate is that I am a mother of three young kids. It is incumbent on any of us here as legislators to find ways to protect children online. It is not all about children online; it is about everybody online but particularly our most vulnerable, namely, our children. Unless we put rules and regulations in place to protect them, how can we keep them safe? There is no doubt that parents are behind the curve on this issue. They are looking to us and to the Government for leadership and to come forward. I am very frustrated that we do not have a digital safety commission in place.

I must acknowledge the work of the Internet safety office. I compliment the fantastic work it does with all of two staff. The work those two staff deliver is done incredibly well. They produced 40,000 booklets last year of which there were four in the range. Anyone who got one into their household will know they were fantastic. However, 40,000 was not enough. They do really good work on educating the parents and the children themselves. I agree that the digital safety commissioner should have a dual function of implementing social media safety measures, educating people about safe online behaviour and working with Government policy on safe online behaviours.

It was fantastic to have the Minister, Deputy Naughten, and the three other Ministers at the meeting of the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs yesterday. In the earlier session of the meeting, before the Ministers arrived, we heard from Professor Brian O'Neill, the chairman of the Internet content governance advisory group. That is a mouthful in itself. I pushed Professor O'Neill because this document was produced in 2014 and they had 30 recommendations including three main recommendations. Not one of them has been implemented, which is regrettable. I welcome the fact that the Minister is talking about an advisory group. That is something we can do in the here and now. We do not need to wait for big legislation or anything else. Children can input into this as well. That is a huge part of it.

The kids are nearly laughing at us having these discussions at this stage. They know where it is at. When we talk about Snapchat maps, which we had during the summer and we talked about Sarah, we were talking after some of them had actually uploaded or downloaded or knew about the location buttons. That is why we need a digital safety commissioner, so that it is all funnelled through one particular grouping and we can protect the kids. Parents should be aware straight away when there are different maps going on. We do not need to hear it a few weeks later. There should always be awareness.

On the Law Reform Commission, discussion is taking place at the moment of the digital age of consent and whether it should be 13 or 16. A digital safety commissioner would be best advised and would have all the research done on how we could protect children if the age remains at 13. Parents would feel there is a safety net and protection in place. Dr. Geoffrey Shannon made a very detailed report on this issue to the Law Reform Commission and recommended the age of 13. The ISPCC, the Children's Rights Alliance and the Ombudsman for Children also suggest the age of 13. However, Professor O'Sullivan and Dr. Mary Aiken have made very compelling arguments as to why the age should be 16, in respect of understanding how data can be used and who owns and controls it when it goes up online. A digital safety commissioner would be able to report back to the Government with key recommendations on this matter. Many Deputies and Ministers are doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes to try to figure out if the age should be 13 or 16. It is a big conversation piece at this time.

I welcome the event on 8 March. It is brilliant and I would be delighted to attend. The gathering together of all these people in one room to thrash out the sort of things we are discussing this evening is welcome. I hope they will discuss the role and function of the digital safety commissioner. The Minister is right that we cannot be insular and just think about it in an Irish context. We have to think of it in a European and a global context. People might not realise that a lot of these sites are not based here and might not be licensed through here. We are lucky to have direct communications with the ones that are here. The ones that are not here are the ones we have to understand and look at on a global basis.

The committee has had wonderful speakers making presentations. Deputy Ó Laoghaire was a member of the committee for many months before Deputy Mitchell joined him. We had a lot of heavy lifting and engagement. We had An Garda Síochána in and it has done a phenomenal amount of work, as the Minister said. One of the things that came out of yesterday's committee meeting was how underresourced the Garda team is. It is a very small team and its manpower gets sucked into focusing on one or two cases. The Garda is so dependent on Europol and the US for gathering all its information. It does a phenomenal amount of work behind the scenes, which people would not realise.

I have been critical of the Government in the past couple of weeks because of the lack of - or even a whisper of - a digital safety commissioner. While the Minister and his team at the Department are very committed, I sometimes feel that the Taoiseach is sitting on the fence on this issue. It is incumbent on him to step up and protect the youth of this country, to row in behind the Minister and to decide under what Department the digital safety commissioner will operate. He must give the go-ahead in order that a digital safety commissioner can be appointed. It falls across a number of Departments. Before I came here tonight I had to speak with Deputies O'Callaghan, Browne, Thomas Byrne and Dooley. No individual Deputy can take sole ownership of this issue because it falls within all Departments. I believe we need to find the correct home for it and a Department needs to take ownership of it. It is in a good home at the moment and I would like it to stay there but it needs a permanent home in order that someone can take up the mantle and protect the youth.

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