Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is the second time that I have been on my feet in front of this Minister. He is a decent, progressive man but I would be obliged if he would let me get on with my speech. I may be wrong, as I often am, and if so I stand to be corrected in due course but I will make my few points.

The Internet content governance advisory group, ICGAG, report was set up at the behest of the former Minister, Pat Rabbitte, and it contains a set of recommendations that have not yet been adopted. I strongly believe we now have legislation before us that can be subject to amendment but that allows for the appointment of a digital safety commissioner. However, until the Government clearly tells us under which Department it will sit, I predict we will be here this time next year talking about the same issue. A recommendation was made by the ICGAG that a Cabinet Minister or a Minister of State would be appointed. As it cuts across the various Departments - I acknowledge the challenges the Government faces on this issue - I do not see why the Government could not appoint somebody who has a certain skill set to act outside of the silos so as to ensure there is direct political responsibility for this.

To return to the four speeches that were made yesterday, if one parses through the Departments involved, namely, the Departments of Children and Youth Affairs, Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Justice and Equality and Education and Skills, it is clear that there is excellent work going on in the individual Departments. If I was to proffer an opinion - I do not have the wisdom of Solomon on these matters - I would say that matters are often passed on to the Department of Justice and Equality if there is any sort of bespoke or eclectic element to it. I am not sure if the Department of Education and Skills would be the most appropriate place for the office of the digital safety commissioner. I believe it stands somewhere between the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. If I was to offer an opinion I believe it would work best with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, but as I say, I do not have a monopoly on wisdom in this area. There was no indication from any of the Ministers yesterday that they wanted to take this on or that they wanted to ensure they would have political responsibility for this at Cabinet level. We are not seeing the level of advocacy at ministerial level we need. I suggest that someone could sit under that level as a Minister of State who could cross-cut each Department and collate the information available in each. Three or four excellent civil servants could be appointed and it could have a budget, and we could get on with it. If that does not happen we will probably be here this time next year discussing this issue.

I have not carried out a proper analysis of the number of Private Members' Bills. We are all producing them. The Minister has referred to the Labour Party Bill that seeks to tackle online harassment. We now have this Bill, introduced by Deputy Ó Laoghaire, which seeks to establish the office of the digital safety commissioner. I believe Fianna Fáil is drafting legislation on this issue as well. We have a plethora of Bills and we need some degree of co-ordination at the political level. This is a non-partisan issue and there has been a massive willingness on the part of all politicians, on a cross-party basis, to co-operate on it. There are outlying issues relating to the digital age of consent - some of us are conflicted as to whether it should be 13 or 16 and there is work to be done on that - but if we are all working in unison and in tandem with one another, we can achieve something. I believe there is a massive onus on this generation of politicians or the incumbents under this mandate to try to achieve something on this. There is massive demand from parents in particular to ensure that somebody in government will grasp the nettle on this issue. That is what people want to see.

I am hopeful that the office of the digital safety commissioner will sit somewhere between the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment or the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, given that this is an issue that affects minors in the main. I support the Bill. Deputy Rabbitte spoke about resources. Yesterday I asked the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, about the Garda national protective services. We had an interaction with the assistant commissioner at the committee before Christmas and were told that fewer than 100 people were deployed in the area of online child exploitation, cybersecurity and cybercrime.

I believe strongly that if this country is able to announce a multi-billion euro national development plan, somewhere within the Exchequer's coffers there is money to be made available to buttress the existing resources to assist the Garda in particular and the Office for Internet Safety, which I understand has probably fewer than five staff members. They do a great deal of work. Similarly, in education, there is the Professional Development Service for Teachers, PDST, which is responsible for ongoing professional development for teachers, which has a small number of staff who are trying to roll out programmes across the country. There are major challenges in that respect, as articulated by the Minister, Deputy Bruton, yesterday.

If we can provide better resources to existing services we can start making a greater impact but in supporting this legislation, I would make the case that if it passes all Stages, and, hopefully, it will, and if the Government intends to amend it as it sees fit, it would amend the Sinn Féin Bill and not state that it will take on its own Bill. Hopefully, the Minister might come back after 8 March and after the open policy forum because much of what he will hear in the open policy forum are messages he has already heard through official formal and informal channels. We all know what we need to do. We need to pass this legislation, appoint an appropriate Minister with responsibility for this area, and give that Minister the resources and the political responsibility to do that. If that is done, we will be able to get on with the job in hand.

See this speech in context