Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leader to talk to the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment in regard to minors purchasing mobile phones and SIM cards with no checks being carried out as to their identification or age by some of the telecommunications companies. At present ten year olds can rock up to a mobile phone shop and buy a pay-as-you-go phone or ready-to-go SIM without being asked for identification or for their age. This is without doubt leading to a jump in underage gambling via mobile phones, an explosion in cyberbullying, the scourge of sexting, which we hear is happening in schools every day of the week and the use of porn by young kids. We have opened the door to vices and let kids enter with little or no control. The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment needs to urgently address this anomaly in our law in order to safeguard and protect the lives of our youth. It is a serious problem and one we have to address. We cannot just sit on our hands in this regard.

I agree with the point made by Senator Frances Black, given I too was appalled when I came back to the House today to find that 100 years after Independence, three people are living in tents in the shadows of Leinster House and must urinate in corners and wash themselves in the rain coming out of a gutter. It is just not good enough. I could not believe my eyes at what I saw today. We hear that all these people are being housed and about all that is being done for those on housing lists but the homelessness crisis is out of control. The sooner we admit that and try to tackle it, the better. Something serious has to be done.