Mary Ann O'Brien (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Senator Naughton to the Seanad and am delighted to have her on board. I echo my female colleagues in saying girl power is good and the men adore us, of course. We are working with the issue of pregnancy at the moment and a risk to the mother's life and we are working with the unborn.

In respect of the born children of our country, I ask the Leader to organise a debate with the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources when we come back from our rest in summer as to whether pornography is poisoning our children's minds. We are allowing our children to see material that a decade ago would have been accessible only in an extreme fetish club. If people do not believe me, they should type youporn or redtube into Google and see the options that come up. The effect on children is devastating. They think these gross scenes are normal and set out to copy them as they take their first steps in getting together with other people in sexual activity. I never thought I would stand up in the Irish Seanad and feel nostalgic for Hustler, Penthouseor Playboybut we must now admit that we must think of them as part of the good old days. What can be done? We must warn our children that they are likely to come across pornography but also warn them that it is not what most of us think of as sex. I will not go much further. Twice in the past couple of days and over the weekend, we have seen that the Minister has come out and said he will not force Web forums to block pornography. Half of the children in this country have access to a smartphone and all of them have access to a computer. Let us not pretend for one minute that we all know what they are looking at. I ask all Members to join me in asking the Leader for a debate on this issue to ask the Minister why he is not forcing the Web firms to block pornography to our children.