Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I cannot accept that. The Budapest convention was signed 17 years ago and the Minister has said that much work has been done on it. He cannot, however, give a date as to when Ireland is going to ratify the convention. We are aware that certain steps have been made in respect of it and that it has been partly implemented in domestic law, but that is still not an answer to the plea made by Dr. Geoffrey Shannon in 2014 that the conventions be ratified. It is not as though the Department or the Government have not been put on notice of the failing of the State to ensure the provisions are implemented so this important convention can be ratified.

On the Lanzarote convention, which was signed 12 years ago, the Minister said that "significant progress has been made" but, again, we have not been given an indication as to when we are going to have full ratification of this crucial legislation. When one considers the Lanzarote convention one will note there is a significant number of important provisions contained within it that we have to ensure we bring into our legislative scheme. We need to recognise that the creation of images of non-existent children contributes to the sexual objectification of children. I am aware that this is a complex area, but it has to be dealt with under the Lanzarote convention. I regret that it is an area the Government has not yet dealt with. I am conscious that the Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar's Government has been in place for nearly two years, but Fine Gael has been in power since 2011. During the eight-year period between 2011 and 2019, the Government has had significant time to do work in respect of both of these crucial conventions to ensure they had been ratified and to ensure that the provisions required under the conventions had been fully transposed into domestic law. That has not been done. I ask the Minister once again if he will let the public know when those crucial conventions will be ratified fully in domestic law.

See this speech in context