Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will state in the first instance that the Labour Party will be supporting the Bill. I am glad that the Minister and the Government are also supporting it to the next stage of proceedings.

The Minister will forgive me if I am a little bit cynical about his response. We had a good engagement at the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs yesterday. I am not sure whether there is a precedent but four Cabinet members appeared before us in unison to speak on the issue of Internet safety and to articulate what each of their Departments is doing to protect minors and to get people to engage in order that as a society, we meet the challenges presented by the vagaries of the online community. My cynicism - it has a small "c" - stems from the fact that were one to parse through the speeches made by each of the four Ministers, not one of them is proactive in putting up his or her hand and asking for responsibility for the role of digital safety commissioner within his or her Department. Instead, we are subjected to another open policy debate.

See this speech in context