Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

This is not the first time I have spoken on this in the Dáil. I have one issue with a previous contribution: it is not new technology, as this technology has been around for years. For years, this and previous Governments have been effectively allowing online companies to child groom. Some 70% of 11-to-14-year-olds have seen violent misogyny online. It is not just about what is happening to people online. This is influencing the attitudes and behaviour of young men and boys. That has been proven by study after study. For example, two out of five young men hold "traditional" views. In other words, 52% of them think men should dominate and think that is what manhood is about. Some 46% of them think women's feelings and views should be utterly ignored. The President of the US said to a journalist, "Quiet, piggy". Misogyny and violence against women and children are being absolutely normalised. It will be very interesting to see what happens in Australia, whatever one's view is.

There are many different attitudes one could take, but at least Australia is doing something. What is this Government doing? It is doing absolutely nothing. Is that because all of the tech companies are based in this country, in some cases enjoying zero tax, with us getting corporation tax from them the rest of the time? Ireland is meant to be legislating on behalf of the whole EU in this regard.

More than half of Gen Z have had inappropriate material sent them while 44% have received unsolicited explicit images and 40% have received unwanted sexually suggestive comments. Being online is not a safe place for anyone. It is particularly unsafe for women. It was the theme this year of the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Deepfake videos have been mentioned. I went to the committee that the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre set up. It seems that the committee is being boycotted by the three big parties because nobody came from Fine Gael to two of the meetings. I do not think there was anybody from Sinn Féin either. In any case, absolutely incredible material is being made available by the committee. There was an MLA member who spoke about a deepfake that was used against her in the run up to the elections. This is stuff that every TD should be aware of, yet that committee seems to have been ignored by Members. We need to act, and we need to act now, not be in thrall to these big tech companies, as seems to be the case with the Government.

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