Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I fully accept that the Bill could, on Second, Third and Fourth Stage, be improved and made more specific and the like. However, the principle of the Bill seems to have universal support in this House.

The principle of age limits being monitored by domestic legislation in respect of other member states is already breached, if you like, in the Government's proposed legislation in respect of the sale of tobacco products to persons under the age of 21. In that case, age verification procedures are imposed on any country within the European Union which proposes to sell tobacco products online into Ireland. In those circumstances we require that any such sale by an online process can only be done by somebody who respects and implements age verification. That would, if the tobacco Bill becomes law, be restricting the age at which cross-border tobacco sales can take place to people over the age of 21 and requires age verification to achieve that end.

Whereas it is all very well in EU terms to say that the principle of origin applies, what about online access to non-EU sites? That is a point which strikes me. We can put all our eggs in the EU basket and require the European Commission and Coimisiún na Meán to implement EU standards as best they can. However, I wonder about access to entirely foreign and non-EU websites and sources of material. Has that been considered? Given that the Government is not opposing this Bill and that it will eventually, if time permits, go to Committee Stage, such issues should be considered in that context rather than simply thrown out as seemingly insurmountable objects to dealing with the issues that I have raised.

Those are a few comments I make in support of the principle of this legislation. I will make one further general point. We seem to be ambivalent on the subject of childhood in this country. There are people who say, including in the Minister's party, that children under the age of 18 should be allowed to vote in Dáil elections. Adolescence means becoming an adult. We have fixed an age of majority at the age of 18. People argued that somehow it would be a good idea if people who we do not permit to smoke, buy a lottery ticket, enter the contract of marriage, go into licensed premises except in certain circumstances are nonetheless mature enough to make decisions about national political issues. The Constitution was amended in the fourth amendment to bring the voting age down from 21 to 18 but left at 21 the age qualification to become a Member of Seanad Éireann or the Dáil. On a general point, it seems there is confusion about the status of childhood, when it ends, why it should end and why it is important that it should be protected. If a young person under the age of 18 commits a murder, he or she is given anonymity and is not subject to mandatory sentences, on the basis of immaturity.

On the other hand, we, as a society, are invited by some people to back extending voting rights to them. I think a lot of this is based on the proposition that they feel their particular ideologies would be more attractive to immature minds.

I believe in childhood. I also believe there has to be an age of majority, that we have to be consistent in its application and that there is no need to end or dilute childhood. It is under sufficient pressure as things stand, I would argue, from pornography and social media generally. I am not talking about sexual matters only. I am talking about bullying, opinion forming, falsehood, false information, and misinformation. Young people are subject to extraordinary pressures in this day and age and we must, as a society, be coherent and consistent in our approach to whether people are or are not adults, and we should not begin to chip away at that principle when it suits us and invoke it, for instance, in respect of asylum seekers under the age of 18 being totally differently treated when it does not suit us.