Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I have very little evidence of the Cathaoirleach being wrong as frequently as various Attorneys General have been. We already have a section in place. Harassment is a smokescreen and is misleading. The story is that it is only about the emergency services, which is an important fact, but the section of the Post Office (Amendment) Act 1951, as amended, will read:

Any person who—

(a) sends by telephone any message that is grossly offensive, or is indecent[.]

That has nothing to do with the 999 call-out service. That is about any person who sends anybody a message. I accept that the penalties are being amended but that is what the section is about.

The Government is refusing to redefine a message by telephone to include the two single most widely used forms of communication, e-mail and text messaging, both of which rely on the telecommunications system. These are two forms of abuse carried out through the telecommunications system which are of general concern to people, especially young people, neither of which the Government is prepared to make illegal because somebody somewhere in the depths of the Attorney General's office, who is probably barely aware of the existence of e-mails and so on, decided to leave it out. There is no other reason. It is because somebody who was drafting the Bill did not feel comfortable with the issues of e-mails and text messages that he or she left them out. It is perfectly reasonable to see the same hand behind that and this extraordinary attempt to give the Minister powers by decree to impose fines through the courts of up to €4 million. It is an entirely spurious reason which is being given not to do something simply because they do not want to do it.