Joan Freeman (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In response to the Minister, I know that some of the amendments will be ruled out of order because of the financial imposition on the Exchequer. I introduced the Children's Digital Protection Bill 2018 last December and I acknowledge Professor Mary Aiken, who is in the Gallery and who has aided and abetted me every step of the way. Yesterday we had a number of briefings which were really interesting. Two things keep coming up, over and over again. To address the first, I am talking about children; this Bill is not about online protection generally. It just relates to harmful content. The second thing that came up yesterday, which was quite interesting, was that not one of the major stakeholders appeared at our briefing. That says a great amount. They are not really interested in protecting our children from harmful content.

Harmful content is defined under section 3 of the Bill as "encouragement and incitement to suicide", "encouragement of any self harm practices"-----