Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Child sexual abuse is a heinous crime that has evolved significantly over the past years. One in five children suffers from some form of sexual violence, offline and online. Both increased online presence of children and technological developments create new possibilities for abuse and raises challenges for law enforcement to investigate this extremely serious and widespread crime. The Internet, for example, has greatly worsened the spread of child sexual abuse, allowing predators to meet online and instantaneously share videos and pictures of severe sexual violence against children. Given the alarming prevalence of child sexual exploitation and abuse material, swift and comprehensive action is imperative. The purpose of the new directive is to prevent crimes associated with child sexual abuse and exploitation as well as to protect the victims. A strong criminal law is therefore essential and with this directive we are taking a step in the right direction to ensure we have effective legal tools to ensure children and bring predators to justice. The revised rules within this directive justly expand the definitions of offences and introduces higher penalties and more specific requirements for prevention and assistance to victims.

Until now, online providers have been relatively free to combat sexual child abuse as they choose, and the consequences have been shown to be devastating. The threat of abuse is real and has increased throughout the EU. There were 1.5 million reports of child sexual abuse in the EU in 2022. In 2023, the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which receives reports of suspected child sexual abuse material from US-based online service providers, referred more than 10,000 reports to An Garda Síochána in respect of material relating to Ireland. This represents a 17% increase on the number of referrals in 2022. The Internet Watch Foundation reports a 360% rise in self-generated sexual imagery among those between seven and ten-years-old from 2020 to 2022 as a result of grooming. Online providers will be required to detect, report, and remove online child sexual abuse material on their services, and providers of games, pornographic platforms and services directly targeting kids will have to make their services safe by design. This agreement is a major step forward in making the Internet a safer place for children while upholding fundamental rights. The new directive includes in the definition of "child pornography" the use of realistic images of imaginary children. Often used as a loophole within disrupting criminal networks, this means it would be unnecessary to prove there is an actual child behind every image, which welcomingly makes the efforts of law enforcement agencies easier. Moreover, the criminalisation of grooming is vital for law enforcement agencies to be able to intervene to prevent an adult and a child from meeting instead of waiting until the actual abuse has occurred. These children are victims. Childhood abuse effects every aspect of a child’s life from how they think, their sense of safety, their sense of worth and their coping. We need to protect and assist victims in every way we can in the hope that legislation in Europe is capable of efficiently protecting children in the digital world and guarantee they can exercise all the rights envisaged for them in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The most important issue is the protection of our children and therefore I support this motion. In comparison with when I was a child 50 years ago, children are far more advanced than us. They are more curious, and I maintain they are more intelligent than us. We can look at simple things like the Internet and mobile phones. I do not know how many times in the past number of years I had to go to my grandkids to ask them to update my phone or my computer. They are so advanced. However, the bottom line is that they are children and need protection. They are smarter than us but there are a lot of evil people out there at the moment. I welcome this motion. A good job has been done on it, and I wish the Minister of State the best with it.

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