Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise to the Minister and the Members for joining the debate late, albeit I was watching a lot of it. As a parent and, then, as a politician, I note that a vast number of people are concerned about access to material on various digital platforms. The Minister recognises that, as do we all. We must strike a balance which provides adequate protection for our children, who are defined in the Bill as persons under 18 years of age, albeit we are speaking in this particular instance of the age of consent, which the Bill, as drafted, proposes as 13 years. I am somewhat torn on this. We are entering a new era of access to material whereby any individual, including a child, with a digital device can access information from any corner of the world. That information can be good, as we all know, and educational, but it can also be devastating. It might only be pictures but they could change the life of a child or individual forever. I agree with some speakers that the Bill is about data protection, but it is also the case that we very much need a debate in Ireland on the new digital era and protections for our citizens, including children. Protection may be needed from people seeking to groom children, or who are otherwise suspicious and who we do not want interacting with children at all, or from companies using digital platforms to sell games or for marketing or accessing the data of people, including children, to sell on.

I recognise that parents must be responsible also but things are moving very fast with technology. I consider myself to be fairly technologically adept, but one has to keep up with the various platforms and devices to be fully up to speed. I recognise that there are protections including blocking technology for the Internet. However, last Christmas new devices were bought for children, including children under the age of 16 and as young as ten, which led to parents, with good intentions, signing up their children to gaming platforms. Those parents subsequently discovered that their children spent thousands of euro buying bonus game points and items to allow them to advance in those games. These are reputable companies but they use their devices to access children who spend thousands of euro without their parents' knowledge. The Minister might tell me that their parents should know, but all they do at the start is register a credit card. These incentives then come up on the game screen and children just click a button to download games and bonuses, stacking up thousands of euro in costs. People might ask what I am talking about, but some parents are too ashamed to say this is happening. When they challenge the companies that sold these things to their children, they discover they have no comeback because they signed terms and conditions or ticked a box to get a child up and running at Christmas and are left with hundreds or thousands of euro in bills.

I am not saying this is the legislation to deal with that issue, but it relates to data protection and the age of consent. As such, I flag the need for the Oireachtas to come back to this issue, perhaps through a joint committee, delve into it in more depth and put in place the protections for citizens, including children, as to the digital material they can access night or day at home. A person could be watching television in one room without knowing what material is being accessed in another. I am concerned about it and I am interested to hear the Minister's response as to what we can do in the legislation or further legislation to protect citizens, including children, in relation to digital material.