Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I do not wish to speak about the health system or the Prison Service, despite the serious nature of those issues. I would like to discuss something that affects businesses and those who use personal computers. I am sure the House will agree that an initiative announced by the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources in recent days is to be welcomed. The Minister has initiated a project at European level to ensure that "spam"– an awful term to describe unsolicited e-mails that are sent to practically everybody's PC – will be outlawed in Europe. If I understand his statement correctly, the Minister will, under the EU Presidency, extend that project to the rest of the world. Very few people who use a PC will be unaware of the deeply offensive and gratuitous nature of much of the unsolicited pornography one receives. I am receiving, on average, more than 100 unsolicited e-mails per day on my personal computer. People should note that if they attempt to un-subscribe by clicking on an un-subscribe box, as they are constantly being encouraged to do, this will ensure they will receive even more unsolicited e-mails. This is because, technically, there is nothing in existence to un-subscribe from unsolicited spam. I am sure the Leader will have a comment on this and I would welcome the Minister's attendance in the House at some point to make a statement on how he intends to enforce his proposal. The absence of information on how he will enforce it is the one flaw in his otherwise welcome statement.

I returned to my office after having been away for four days and I had over 500 unsolicited e-mails, most of which are so bad, deeply offensive and pornographic in nature that I cannot allow my children to access my PC at home because I am afraid of what they might see. I have been around the course, no more than the Cathaoirleach, and yet I find the subject matter of some of this spam, which comes almost exclusively from the United States, so deeply gratuitous and offensive that it is past time that something was done about it. I welcome the Minister's initiative in this regard and I am sure the House will join me in applauding it.