Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Ceann Comhairle. Words matter; they matter a lot. Words can cast light, they can educate, they can build up, they can get to the truth, they can hold people to account and they can inspire. Words can obviously do the opposite in many ways. They can be the vehicles of hate and they can be used for good and bad. There is no doubt about it.

Aontú is a republican political party. We believe in a republic where every citizen is equal, where the colour of a person's skin is of no more significance than the colour of a person's eyes. In that republican society we want a place where everybody can live their lives without fear of incitement to violence or of discrimination. In a citizens' republic everybody also has equal rights to their views and equal rights to articulate their views. In a civilised society we need to do this respectfully. We need to raise our children with the ability to question and challenge in a manner that does not cause needless hurt. In truth, if we want to fight misinformation, we need to do that with information. If we want to fight hate, we need to tackle that with truth and decency.

If we want to remedy disinformation, we need to provide accuracy. The key issue that has been missed in this debate so far is that the whole idea of a liberal democracy is built on the system that ideas can challenge each other fairly and that in a respectful competition of ideas, the better ideas will percolate to the top and become the policy of a given society. The truth is that the history of censorship has never ended well. It has been used throughout history as a tool of dictators who have stained the earth with the blood of millions of people. Censorship is authoritarian. It deletes the liberty of citizens to have that competition of ideas and reduces the ability of people to challenge and test the prevailing ideology. Censorship not only leads to the erasing of citizens' right, also guarantees that the best solutions for societies will not be achieved. It means that societies can radically and speedily swing in any direction where the latest ideology fashion is blowing at a certain time.

It is also important to say that censorship is an ingredient of conspiracy because the more censorship that happens within a society, the less society believes the authorities of the State, whether the Government or other sources of information. There is a direct correlation between more censorship and more conspiracy.

Censorship happens in different ways. It can happen in a legal fashion. It can have a chilling effect by stopping people talking about certain things. It can also happen when media organisations curate information on the basis of what they think adults in society can handle. We have seen examples in recent times where newspapers have not given certain information because they think people in this Republic are not able to handle, decipher and use that information properly.

In the past, censorship has been a tool of the political right. It has been used to delete democratic rights. In the past, the left has been the sector of society that has fought censorship and has been the voice of ordinary men and women across the country. However, in many ways, that is no longer the case. What we are seeing, unfortunately, is a move towards a more authoritarian-type instinct among left-leaning political parties. Ireland is now, unfortunately, becoming known internationally as a country that seeks to delete the right of freedom of speech and other democratic rights. The hate speech Bill has become notorious internationally because it seeks to delete people's rights to interact on issues that are important in a democracy. Two of its major elements, the definitions of "hate" and "gender ideology", are very weak. They are self-referential. If we were to ask a kid, "What is a banana?" and the kid says, "A banana is a banana", we would probably accept it. However, when we ask the Minister for Justice, who wants to jail people for what they say, "What is hate?" and she says, "Well, hate is hate", we have a problem. That is why the world is taking note of the difficulty that is arising now in Ireland in that respect.

The Government recently introduced legislation to stop peaceful protest outside hospitals and doctors' surgeries where abortions are being carried out. It was interesting that it was the week before the violent riots in Dublin that this Government banned peaceful protest outside hospitals. This is where the Government has, in many ways, become so distracted by the culture wars that it has forgotten about the bread-and-butter crime and antisocial behaviour that are wreaking havoc on our society. I would caution the Government as to how it regulates large international companies, social media organisations or digital information. I do not believe that people have the right to incite violence, and that absolutely should be a criminal offence. We do, however, need the ability to communicate.

I have a political interest in issues such as those relating to section 31. It is interesting that Sinn Féin voted for the hate speech Bill in this Chamber but voted against it in the Seanad. That was another example of the Sinn Féin flip-flop shop that has recently become prominent in politics. Dissent is a key and important element of democracy. It is a bulwark against intellectual fashions that often take hold in democracies. We need to ensure people have the right to dissent.

Large tech companies have enormous power. They absolutely have too much power. However, history is also littered with governments that have had too much power in terms of information. The best way to tackle large international tech companies is around the issue of their dominance within society. This is an issue that the European Union and this Government have been reticent about historically. They have not tackled the dominance of these organisations. No organisation, including media and tech companies, should have market dominance. There needs to be perfect competition within all these markets so there is a diversity of views and no particular view has sway.

I want to speak to another aspect of the Bill that relates to the issue of video-sharing platforms. This is a key issue for which I have real problems with the Government's approach. There is a situation in this country whereby young children of the ages of eight, nine and ten are consuming hard-core and violent pornography on a daily basis. Young boys are growing up on a diet of violent hard-core pornography. We then ask ourselves why there has been a doubling of sexual assaults and rapes, and a tripling of domestic violence, in the past ten years. The fact is that the ingredients we are giving to young boys, in particular, for them to understand relationships and sexuality are leading directly to the level of sexual violence that happens in our society at the moment. The Government is wise enough to seek to ban the advertising of junk food to children because it knows that when children see adverts for junk food, they eat it. The Government is, however, refusing to do anything about stopping young children consuming hard-core pornography in this country. A mother told me recently that she picked up a laptop and looked at the two most recent searches made by her ten-year-old child. One was a search for Santa Claus and the other search was for oral sex. That latter search yielded an explicit video. The juxtaposition of those two elements within a young child's brain is incredible, but it is a reflection of the lack of action by this Government. I would like the Minister of State to take particular heed of these points, which I have made over and over again. The Government is still shying away from seeing the link between these matters and the fact that we are living in a more violent society.

Other countries have taken such steps. France has introduced legislation to ban children from consuming hard-core pornography. It told tech companies that if they want this material available on their websites, they need to guarantee they need to know the age of the person consuming it. It has even provided a state digital certificate to ensure it can be done. Companies that refuse to comply are taken down. We in Aontú produced a Bill which looks to do the same thing. The mad thing is that this country will do it for money. A film studio can demand that the courts take down copyright material from the Internet in this country because it obviously does damage to the studio's income flow. Judges do that on a regular basis. They go to the Internet service providers, the Eirs and the Vodafones, and demand that those websites are taken down. Nobody is demanding that we take down the damaging material that young children in Ireland are consuming on a daily basis. I raised this matter with the Minister, who told me to wait and said the Government would deal with the issue in the Digital Services Bill. However, the Bill only looks at video-sharing platforms, which is a tiny element of the Internet, that are based in Ireland. The Government's complete plan to try to control harmful material is to deal with approximately 5% or 6% of it.

We hear talk in this Chamber on a regular basis when young women are murdered in horrendous situations. I refer, for example, of the case of Ana Kriégel who was viciously sexually assaulted and murdered by two young boys. All of the talk and expressions of anguish and anger that happens in such cases do not lead to one effort from the Government to solve the crisis. Why can the Government not join the dots? How long is it going to take for the Government to join the dots between the material that young boys, in particular, are consuming and the level of sexual violence that is happening in this country? It is an absolute disgrace that this Bill is being brought through without any real effort to tackle that issue. The CARI Foundation deals with children at risk in Ireland. It has stated there has been a 44% increase in the level of sexual assaults by children on children.

Not only are we making victims of children, we are also making some of them perpetrators of sexual violence against other children. The Government states that it is up to parents to deal with this. It is up to parents to stop children drinking vodka at the age of ten but we also have a law to say that off-licences should not sell vodka to children of that age. Why are Ministers sitting on their hands when it comes to dealing with this issue? It is so frustrating that over and over again the Government is refusing to take any opportunities that come its way to deal with this issue.

The last time I spoke to the Minister with responsibility for media in respect of this matter, she said that the European Union would not allow us to do as I have suggested. I gave her the example of the French Government doing it. The link is clear. The British ombudsman for children has done extensive research in this area and I would urge the Minister of State to read its report which shows a direct link between the material that the Irish Government allows to be consumed by ten-, 11- and 12-year-old boys and the level of sexual violence in society. In previous decades, we saw sexual assaults and sexual abuse in institutions. The sad thing is that many people knew about it at the time. It is happening today, not necessarily in institutions but in families and locations around our country. Everybody knows about it but the Government is still doing nothing. I implore the Minister of State to take this issue seriously, to do the research on it and to make sure the Government comes up with an appropriate response.

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