Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Imagine you have a 12-year-old child and found out that child was watching or was exposed to pornography on a sitting room television while visiting a friend's house. The child would likely be permanently banned from visiting that friend's house and it is likely you would report the parent to Tusla. Yet, we are giving our children smartphones with open access to the Internet where they regularly encounter misogynistic and toxic content online, especially on well-known pornographic websites. Ignorance is not bliss any more. Parents, Coimisiún na Meán and the Government need to step up and urgently act to protect our children. Children as young as those still in primary school are accessing porn. A recent UK study found that one in ten children has viewed pornography by the age of nine with half the respondents seeing it by the age of 13.

I am not trying to be the fun police or drag Ireland back to the time when sex was seen as bad or dirty, but gone are the days when teenagers hid magazines underneath their pillows. Nowadays, access to pornography is a free-for-all and completely unregulated. Just a cursory glance at some of the adult websites accessible in Ireland shows that these expect users to check a box to claim they are aged 18, with little to no age verification. The content our children are viewing has been shown to increase mental health challenges and sexual aggression and decrease stability for future relationships. Children and teenagers are getting the wrong impression of sex. It is grooming our boys to be violent and our girls to be submissive and think they should consent to sexual violence. Their young minds think that this what sex is, this is how they should behave, this is what they should expect or even this is what they should look like.

We need robust policies and legislation to stop the pornography industry from profiting off our children. We need to start the age verification process and we must have strict enforcement by the online safety commissioner for non-compliant websites, which should face fines. France recently introduced an enforcement mechanism that results in websites in breach of age verification systems facing significant fines and even being permanently banned. Our online safety commissioner, Niamh Hodnett, said that video sharing platforms established in Ireland will have to have age verification measures to block under-18s from accessing adult content by 21 July. My question is: "Or what?" What consequences will they face? What about the companies that are not established here?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this extremely serious matter and drawing our attention to the reality of what is happening as young minds are reshaped in ways that can do great harm to them, when those young minds have their expectations set regarding what should be permissible and consensual and are putting behaviours in place we know can be so harmful to their well-being and safety in future. She raised a very important matter and correctly made the point that this is not about trying to go back to some kind of role where the State acted as a censor or seeking to go back to other practices.

It is simply about getting the balance right and recognising that for our youngest people, young boys and young girls, who could be exposed to content, it is not only inappropriate but also has unfortunately the real potential to be highly dangerous and damaging.

I will answer the different questions the Deputy put to me. There are four actions that are in place from the Government on that at the moment, through the Government directly and through our online regulation. The first one is the online safety code which is in place. Part A of that online safety code has set out very clear but general obligations regarding what we expect social media platforms to do in order to protect children from harmful content. Part B of that code, which will apply from 21 July in a few weeks' time, will set out very specific obligations regarding age verifications for particular platforms to protect our youngest from content which they simply should not be seeing and which could do such harm to them both now and in later life.

In recognition of the importance of this issue and the need for European action to which I will return in a moment, the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, along with other ministers from EU member states has now co-signed a letter to the European Commission emphasising how critical the issue of age verification is and looking to meet the French and Danish ministers on this.

On the cost of non-compliance, there are fines of up to €20 million or 10% of turnover, whichever is greater, and continued non-compliance can lead to legal action against senior management and those involved in the availability of this content.

The Deputy mentioned France. I understand that the law it has put in place, which is a recognition by France of the importance of the issue the Deputy is raising today, can only apply to websites and content that originates in France. That highlights the need for co-operation between member states and highlights the need for the EU to act collectively on the issue. It is really important. Those are the actions we are talking and I thank the Deputy for raising it.

Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Obligations are one thing but we definitely need sanctions and need them quickly. The deadline for these obligations to be in place is 21 July. The Minister will forgive me for my scepticism, but I do not see swift action following. We need to name these companies, shame these companies and have swift sanctions. At a national level, we need to be able to discuss these challenges openly. We have to educate our young people on consent. We have to ensure we are tackling at the very least under 18s who are being exposed to violence and rape. Just this week Women's Aid reported a 12% increase in people contacting it over domestic violence. It had 32,144 people contacting it this year. We know that there is a connection between pornography and violence against women.

We also need to consider that only 20% of parents are using parental controls. There is a lot of work that we need to do here and I just do not get a sense of urgency. I am Chairperson of the Committee on Children and Equality. We need to look at all the ways that we can protect our children from this harm.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I very much agree with the Deputy and also agree with the point she made that a very dangerous reshaping of expectations regarding what is permissible and how we should engage with each other has taken place due to the availability of content and young minds being exposed to it. While I appreciate her scepticism given the importance of this issue, all I can do is genuinely underline to her the action that the European Union is taking and the role that we are taking here in Ireland through our regulator and through the actions of the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, to respond to the important and worrying behaviour that is now taking place regarding access to material and content that young boys and girls and teenagers should not have access to. The Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, is very much aware of this.

On the final point the Deputy made regarding the ability to openly discuss these matters in a respectful but appropriate way, by her raising this issue here today, she is playing her role in it. The Government will continue to respond to an issue that we know is so important.