Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister and his generous response to the Labour Party leader, Deputy Rabbitte, and am glad the Bill is before us today for our perusal. I am sure there are other Bills and Acts where a clause addressing the worrying aspect of this could have been fitted. There are other Bills that would have been passed that could have encompassed the gap that has been found but the Minister is right to remove any doubts that could have existed by copperfastening the issue with the introduction of this legislation. It is better to be safe than sorry and the speedy manner in which this matter has been addressed has removed concern in the community so that there will be no repeat of the demonstrations outside Leinster House last May. I said last year that the Bill would need to be rectified but panic set in and they insisted that it be passed immediately. When panic sets in, common sense goes out the window.

I echo Senator Henry's sentiments on putting the legislation together. The body of legislation dealing with children is huge and goes into many areas of life. As the Internet has grown, we have seen the effect it can have on children. Curiosity is a fine feature of children and a natural inclination. They are curious to learn, to know and to go down paths others do not know. However, another natural characteristic of a child is vulnerability. Curiosity and vulnerability are potent characteristics when combined and leave a child open to suggestion and ways of infiltrating his or her life, causing offence and danger. Children know a great deal about technology that adults do not know because, no matter how modern parents are, they would not have had access to the technology available to children today. Children pick up technological developments easily and are well attuned to what is going on in the world.

I introduced the Stay Safe programme at the behest of the Irish National Teachers Organisation, INTO, when I was Minister for Education in 1991. We developed the programme with the head psychologist in the Department of Education at the time, Mr. Tony O'Gorman. We formulated the programme on a hot summer afternoon, it was piloted that winter and was then implemented in every school in the land. We made it public that we were developing the programme.

The following Saturday, a bus carrying around 30 parents from Cork opposed to the Stay Safe programme drew up at my clinic in my house in Athlone. I will never forget this because I knew they would not all fit in my modest house. Six or seven of the parents came in to berate me, a parent of growing sons, and to ask whether I knew what I was doing because I might be leading children down paths of depravity they could not understand if I allowed the programme to proceed. Various other moral strictures were mentioned and, I understand, the following Sunday there were sermons in several city and rural parishes in Cork against the Stay Safe programme warning parents not to allow their children partake in it.