Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, to the House. I am delighted he is back in ministerial office. I have always found him to be very courteous, conscientious and helpful. I welcome Senator Freeman's Bill, which presents us with an important opportunity to have a debate on providing protection in the digital world. Many of us have been involved long before today in promulgating the need for cybersafety. Senator Lombard and I have been working together on this area. The issues extend beyond those addressed in the Bill to the issues of young people gambling and loot boxes.

A startling report last week found a 400% increase in child gambling in the UK. What would a comparable report find about our country? It is important that this discussion is held. I commend Senator Freeman on introducing the Bill. We need to ensure we do not operate in a silo mentality. Many issues in the digital world, including parental control and the various risks children and young teenagers face online, whether cyberbullying, texting and sexting or predators. This is about creating knowledge and awareness, communicating information and ensuring there is oversight. That is important.

This is not just about having a digital safety commissioner or what the Taoiseach said or did not say.It is about making sure that people understand that what goes online remains online. Many of us have been involved with schools, community groups and parents associations to ensure we provide the best code of practice and information to parents, guardians and young people.

I am particularly concerned about some of the practices that have crept into the gaming sector. I am not trying to denigrate the gaming industry which provides much valuable employment and is a great resource in the country. However, in some cases, it is linked to behaviour that we need to discuss in the context of what the Bill is trying to achieve. A recent report from the UK Gambling Commission stated that 25,000 children between the ages of 11 and 16 are problem gamblers, with many learning how to bet via computer games and social media. This raises the question as to whether we are all turning a blind eye to and sleep-walking into future problems. For this reason, I and a good friend, Mr. Eoin Barry, met Mr. David Sweeney, SC, from the Interactive Software Federation of Europe, ISFE, and, Mr. Alan Duggan, director of the Galway Film Centre who hails from the same county as the Minister of State, to discuss the issue of loot boxes and the gaming sector and work with them in partnership to bring about best practice.

I very much welcome the debate tonight and the bringing forward of solutions. However, solutions must come from the ground up, not from the top down. It cannot be about big brother watching or, as Senator Craughwell stated, about the nanny state. It is about all of us seeking collective buy-in to ensure the future generation of young people is not, as I said, sleep-walking into problems.

There is a need for more information and data to be gleaned and parsed through and analysed to determine how we can make the digital world a better one to navigate and achieve better outcomes. We all benefit from the digital world and the cyberworld but, equally, there are areas in which greater vigilance is required. A proper debate is needed on mental health and online safety and there are practices that can be outlawed. When I chaired the hearings on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013, many of us were subjected to the most vitriolic emails. I was impressed that when I brought one such email to the attention of gardaí in Harcourt Street in Dublin, they were able to trace the computer from which the email had been sent to a particular location, even though it had been routed through many parts of eastern Europe. I was most impressed that An Garda Síochána was able to trace it back to a particular person, and I commend the gardaí involved on doing so.

Senator Freeman and I are not on a crusade against gaming or the digital world but we must ensure that best practice is followed. We need to address issues that have so far not been addressed. When I met the Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality, Deputy Stanton, I was enthused and taken by his sincerity. All of us have an obligation to promulgate ideas on various aspects of the cyberworld to help people access information. I commend all those involved in many different helpline activities providing a resource and assistance to people.

Part of our difficulty is that there is a generation of people who do not understand what happens online and perhaps have a hands-off approach to their children's activity. We need to educate parents and young people. I was struck by Senator Lombard's remarks about his daughter. Many of us will have nieces and nephews who are much more proficient online than we will ever be. That presents its own challenge.

Tonight's debate is a starting point to enable the continuation of the work being done. I hope we will work in collaboration, rather than with a silo mentality. It is not about one size fitting all but about ensuring we strengthen regulation without being overprescriptive or becoming a nanny state. At the same time, we must make sure online material is safe and we put in place proper controls, as we have done with alcohol and gambling and in many other areas.

On a wider point, this country has an issue with gambling, particularly online gambling, that we need to address. I hope we will tackle that. I commend Senator Freeman on introducing the Bill which gives us an opportunity to discuss this issue.