Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for his remarks this morning. Parents are already in an impossible situation. Respite should be automatic in those situations. It should not be a constant battle. All of us deal with cases locally in our own communities where parents are trying to get weekend or overnight respite. The respite is granted but then pulled because no staff are available. Given the level of care in the home, the least parents can expect is a break, a regular break that they can rely upon. They need to know when it is coming and it should happen more than once a year. Given what parents are dealing with, respite is absolutely essential. Ultimately parents will reach breaking point.

We know that in certain circumstances in disability services across the country, parents are left to such an extent and for so long that when they finally do get respite there are times when children are not collected because parents just cannot cope because they have been left so long before they get a break. It is just a vicious circle. I feel pretty strongly about respite to services. We need to put much more into that. It should be automatic. There should be plenty of it and parents should not have to fight so long for it. I do not know the full details of what is happening in the specific case the Senator mentioned. I would certainly hope that the Minister of State for disabilities can intervene there. While one service user has had a crisis point, it is terrible that all those other families are impacted in this way. That cannot persist for those families.

Respite is essential because otherwise the whole system breaks down. We expect an awful lot of parents in those situations and it cannot be left to the family to deal with it in those really impossible circumstances because they will get to a point where they will not be able to cope anymore. It is a vital service and we need to put more focus on it and investment into it. I appreciate from a HSE perspective that it is difficult to get staff in the disability sector. There just is not enough to go around. We need to look at pay and conditions and making it a more attractive career to go into because ultimately we need to attract more into the sector so we have more people working in that sector and can provide more services.

I draw attention to No. 1 on the Order Paper which is my own Bill. Normally someone would move it from the floor. It involves an amendment to the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act. It proposes to introduce an offence relating to catfishing. I am using the term that is more widely known for that issue. It is where somebody's personal information, their photographs and personal details, is used to set up an online account and the harm that can cause an individual. It is currently not a criminal offence unless there is fraud attached to it.

We know of a colleague in this House recently had one of those issues. The issue was covered by Ellen Coyne in the Irish Independent probably over a year and a half ago. The 2 Johnnies also did a podcast on it. One of them had a personal experience of a similar situation. The case covered by Ellen Coyne in the Irish Independent related to a woman whose profession was as a model-actor. She had a public job where her image and name were part of her work. Her image was used on online sites with her name and everything. That was used to set up relationships with other individuals.

We can all understand the damage that would do to somebody. It is not just the embarrassment of it but also the impact it might have on their career. It was not that there was any fraud attached to it, but it was deeply damaging and hurtful to the individual dealing with that circumstance. It can be very difficult to try to get those accounts taken down or to deal with that. I believe it is a gap in Irish law because we are still catching up with the online space where we are all operating more frequently now. It is one of these issues that has arisen in recent times because of the prevalence of online spaces and apps. These are places where people operate now and we have now seen that there is a gap in Irish law. This legislation is to try to deal with that.