Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chair. Again, I thank the Minister for taking this debate and for her encouraging words and challenging words in respect of the contents of the Bill. I also thank all of my friends and colleagues for their contributions. I learned something from each and every contribution.

I would see myself very much as a free speech advocate. I am very concerned, as people in the House will know, about the implications of the so-called hate speech legislation, its implications for our democratic engagement with each other and our civil society needs and rights. However, I have always been clear that I am not a freedom of expression absolutist. Certainly, when it comes to the kind of freedom of expression involved in the purveying of pornography and pushing it at children, I have very strong feelings indeed, which I think are shared by the vast majority of people in our society.

I make no apologies for setting this debate in the context not just of the need to tackle violence against women but broader than that, namely, children's development and, as Senator McDowell eloquently put it, children's right to a childhood, so to speak. That is why I talk about looking at issues in the round and not to be afraid of information about the sources of crime in our country. Nobody would be happier than me if there were reassuring findings in that area, but we can never be afraid of hard questions and data, which gives us the facts to help us know what we are dealing with and then know how to cope with it. That was the context for what I had to say about the inflow of people into our country and the connection of that, if there is a connection, with crime statistics. I do not think that we can ever be afraid of information provided we have a bona fide approach to and intention in the seeking of accurate information.

Regarding the changes that would be needed, and the challenges, in this Bill, I totally accept what has been said. I am conscious of Terry Prone, I think it was, who said in her advice to people who wanted to write, "Don't get it right, get it written." From my perspective, the important thing is to get this Bill before this House as soon as possible. I am already working on the kind of amendments that would address issues such as the one raised by my friend, Senator Seery Kearney, about the definitional issues around pornography, etc. There are other areas too where I think we could certainly amend this Bill.

As regards the core question and the issue that has been brought out by the contribution made by the Minister in her reply to the Bill, it is the question of the Bill's interface with European law. I totally acknowledge that the role of Coimisiún na Meán could be integrated more into the Bill. If European bureaucracy becomes the enemy of the protection of children in this country, then people will have one more reason to develop a suspicion of the EU. I remember being very concerned about a very famous case, of which we are all aware, where the Garda, through good detective work involving the accessing of phone records, was able to bring in a prosecution. However, it later emerged that European law would frustrate the gathering of information of that kind in the future, and that that would be to the detriment, in my view, of future prosecutions. This is the type of situation where governments represented at the European Council need to be banging the table and saying we need adjustments to European law so that we can legislate for our particular needs and areas. I would be very worried if we were prevented from legislating in more detail on this subject simply because the European Union is already doing a certain amount of commendable work in this area.

I see the European directives as providing the necessary minimum and I have no problem that the regulation for organisations that are based in other member states would be done by the regulator in those States. However, it is unconscionable to me that because there is an EU regulatory apparatus in being that we could not then make a decision to go further, and not in a way that contradicts, because remember these European regulations are not about giving rights to the purveyors of pornography and of other stuff online. It is about securing a certain level of protection for people.

If we, as a polity, decide we want to go further then we should be able to do so and the Minister should be banging the table at a European level to say we will implement the directive in full and that while nothing that we will legislate for ourselves will contradict it, we will go further. That is the kind of ambition that I would like to hear from the Government. Senator McDowell brought it out very clearly in the context of tobacco. He also, rightly, identified the issue with purveyors of pornography who are not based either in Ireland or elsewhere in the European Union. There is also the fact that the European Union regulations to date apply to very large platforms whose turnover is a minimum of 45 million subscribers, as I understand it.

I ask the Minister to engage further with this issue about how we, as a country, may legislate further in this area and seek support for that at European level because I am concerned that the European directive, as implemented in legislation, does not go far enough, and that the Coimisiún na Meán guidelines and code do not go far enough. Perhaps that can be improved but I think there needs to be criminal law in primary legislation in this country to augment what has been achieved so far through the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, etc.