Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The research is showing that a more effective measure to protect children is to introduce legislation to prevent commercial industries using data to target children and to forbid such companies from selling on their data, as Senator Ruane has alluded to. Some parents are allowing consent and some parents are not. It is not very effective. We have the benefit of learning from others. I am naturally conservative on children's issues and when I first looked into the digital age of consent I thought it has to be 16, it just has to be. I will come to my final point shortly, but I do not see how any child would be disadvantaged by that. Nobody has been able to answer that question for me. Perhaps the Minister could because I am not sold on this. Obviously I want to support the Minister on this but I am coming to the conclusion that we need a digital safety commissioner quick smart. Education is key but until we have a framework put in place by a digital safety commissioner we will be rudderless when it comes to this issue. That is really all I have to say on this for this evening. I look forward to contributing at a later stage.