Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is quite a serious point I am trying to make. I got a call to the north west of Ireland where two young children had taken their own lives. They had taken their lives because they were accessing social media. Those two young children were younger than 16. When I arrived in the school the principal told me that they had a rake of psychologists in trying to deal with the fallout of what had just happened. He told me that he sat in his car every night, to the point where it was becoming a problem in his family, monitoring social media on behalf of the staff in the school, such was the level of interest in what was going on on social media and on the Internet through Facebook, Twitter and all the other platforms.

He told me that the one thing that bothered him was that when the children leave the school and go home, they are fed and sent to do their homework; before they go to bed their parents ensure that they change into their nightwear, that they wash their teeth, hands, faces and whatever else but the one thing the parents do not do is take the children's mobile phones off them. They do not take away their access to social media. Some of the stuff that goes on on social media is quite trivial, but any of us who are involved in social media can see the poison, the rot and the disgusting behaviour that is out there. In my own case, I had a man whose biography told me that he was a consultant in a hospital silenced on Twitter for the abuse he gave me.

Let us be honest about what we are talking about here. A 13 year old is a child. Would any Senator here expose his or her 13 year old to some of the behaviour he or she sees rained down on himself or herself? If adults can be that cruel to one another, just look at what children can do. I have spent 25 years of my life working in education and I am fully committed to access to the Internet for children. I am fully committed to it. It is a tremendous tool. I introduced electronic learning in my courses in 1995, when the area was in its infancy, because I saw the benefit of it. All my life I have resisted any sort of controls on the Internet, but I am changing my view. I resisted Senator Lorraine Higgins's Bill vehemently in the last Seanad. I regret that dearly because what goes on in cyberspace needs controlling.

I commend the Minister on bringing this Bill to the House. It is good work on his part. What he is trying to do is something which has needed to be done for a long time and I congratulate him for it. However, let us as legislators not think that the all the parents of this world are like my colleague, Senator Ruane. Hers is clearly a loving family where her children are happy enough to discuss any issue with her. Indeed, in my own family there were times when I had to get up from the table because my wife decided to answer a question some of my children asked and I felt totally uncomfortably with the line of conversation and went for a walk around the garden. I am a typical 64 year old man. However, at the end of the day one cannot be with one's children 24 hours a day, seven days a week. One cannot control them and so other controls must be in place which we, as legislators, have to establish. I totally agree that we need a commission which we would be able to refer to and to ask to look at things because the self-determining system is not working.

There are members of the Government's party, of Fianna Fáil, of Sinn Féin and Independent Members in this room who all believe the same thing.This is that 13 is too young. Let us not push this to a vote and not ram 16 through as the age of consent. What the Minister does today will probably last for 20 years and this legislation will shape the system in this country. I beg the Minister to do the honest thing and go for the safe option of 16. We can always lower the age at another time if we need to do that or review it after one year, two years or five years, but we should not expose 13 year old kids. There was a case in the west of Ireland where a girl was stripped in a classroom and photographed, with the photograph being put up on social media by a shower of louts. These are only children and we have a responsibility to make sure we protect them.

A couple of weeks ago a guy told a story of how he gambled €10 million of money he embezzled from his employer and said that nobody had asked him where he got it. If an adult can get away with that, what happens to a child? My child could take my credit card and register as me online so we have to start looking at these things very carefully. I beg the Minister to accept Senator McDowell's amendment. If it cannot be done it will be pushed to a vote or brought back on Report Stage. I would rather it was amended now. The Minister has had a long afternoon and I thank him for his time.