Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies, and particularly the Minister, for their words of support for this legislation. I will deal with some of the specific issues that arose during the debate.

On the objective of the Bill, I echo what Deputy Sherlock said and hope we can work with this legislation that has been initiated and amend it as the process proceeds. I would expect that we can have a pre-legislative scrutiny stage but it seems to me that there is a possibility that a money message will be required. There has been some discussion this week about the Government in that regard and, in fairness, the Minister's Department is not one of the significant offenders, but there is a delay in money messages being provided for Private Members' legislation. That is slowing down the passage of legislation, and the Government as a whole needs to reflect on that. If it serious about new politics, it needs to allow Opposition Bills pass not only Second Stage in the Dáil and pre-legislative scrutiny but to progress to Committee Stage. Technical issues may arise, and the State and the civil servants have much more resources to examine some of those, as well as regulatory issues, but the Government should be embracing such legislation. I am not directing that at the Minister but at the Government as a whole. I hope we can engage on that point.

There was some engagement on a particular Department. That is an interesting discussion. My personal view is that the area of online safety is not only an issue that affects children. For many adults or for any user of the Internet, and I would include vulnerable adults in that, there are challenges, risks, harmful material and material posted without consent. Predatory behaviour can affect adults just as much as children. We need to be conscious that children are the most vulnerable citizens, but it is an issue that affects the population as a whole.

The Minister spoke about Departments. It is not necessarily an immediate proposal but, in future, the entire area of the Internet could be considered in tandem with the areas of technology and science, perhaps in terms of the Civil Service, Departments and so on, and not only in terms of the Internet. A greater focus on the entire area of science would benefit us socially and from the point of view of enterprise and so on.

The challenges that exist online are very different. There is no silver bullet in that regard. The Internet is global. It is not possible to fence ourselves off from the rest of the world online. There are different challenges. The matter of the age of consent deals with data, but there is a misapprehension that that could deal with predatory behaviour also. That is not the case. The approach to dealing with predatory behaviour is very different. In terms of the approach to dealing with harmful material, the appointment of a digital safety commissioner would be a significant step in ensuring that providers tackle that in the first instance. However, its own harmful material can be of itself a criminal offence and where criminal offences are committed online, that is a matter for the Garda.

On the last occasion representatives of the Garda were before the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality, I commended them on their considerable success in tackling the problem of underage harmful material. That was a considerable success against a particularly heinous crime. I commended them on that occasion and I commend them again now, but we need to ensure that the Garda is properly resourced in that regard because it is a very challenging area.

With any issue online, a wide variety of responses is needed. The digital safety commissioner is one response. Everything related to the Data Protection Bill is another but there is a wide variety of others, probably of a legislative nature but also in terms of resources for the Garda.

I take on board the points the Minister made on some areas that may require amendments. The definition of harmful communications can be addressed. I believe that is addressed in Deputy Howlin's Bill or perhaps Deputy Sherlock's-----

See this speech in context