Today it has been announced that the Government intends to introduce age restrictions on social media. Most parents around the country will be in favour of that. I have spoken to many children around this and they have said they could do without social media if none of their peers had it. It is the fear of being left out that is the biggest issue for a lot of children in relation to this. I recognise that screens have radically changed childhood in the past ten years: from 24-hour bullying to unhealthy, passive physical inactivity; and from isolation and loneliness to violent pornographic content on their phones on a regular basis.

Social media is made as addictive and sticky as possible, and even adults find it very difficult to handle social media. Aontú produced a Bill five years ago that sought to ban the provision of hardcore pornographic material to children. Hardcore pornography companies, some of which operate in this city as part of the Government’s foreign direct investment policy, are providing hardcore material to children. Children experts from all over the world are saying that consumption of hardcore pornographic material by children as young as ten is leading to an increase in sexual violence against women. Indeed, incidents of children sexually abusing other children have significantly increased in this country in recent years. The law, as it stands, is making victims and perpetrators out of children because we are not protecting children from this content.

The Ana Kriégel case was one such horrific case. Ana was violently attacked, sexually assaulted and murdered in an abandoned house in Lucan in 2018 by two boys aged 13. An examination of Boy A’s phone revealed that there were 12,000 images on it, the vast majority of which were pornographic in nature. I will not mention some of that content because there are children in the Gallery. You would imagine that particular murder and sexual assault would have jolted the Government into action to protect children from this material, but since then there has been tumbleweed in relation to this material. When we launched our Bill, we got measured tones of shock from the Taoiseach and others, but we got no action on the issue at all.

With all the talk of social media and the serious problems in that regard, there is a bigger problem about which there is no talk or action. In the context of our child protection laws, there are dozens of men on a regular basis before our courts who are found with thousands of images of children, abusive material, and videos and photographs of the most serious and explicit nature. On a monthly basis, these individuals get suspended sentences in this country. When it comes to the Government’s initiative in this regard, I am asking the Taoiseach for an holistic, coherent approach to all Internet content for the protection of children.

Certainly, we can have an holistic, integrated approach to what is horrific criminal activity and behaviour in terms of presenting, enabling or facilitating access to hardcore pornographic material for children. That is illegal and against the law, and it will be prosecuted. If, by “integration”, the Deputy means integration with the Courts Service or decisions of judges, we cannot do that because we have the separation of powers. The Deputy knows that. We cannot dictate to judges. We can enact laws and there is work under way in the area of online safety, particularly for children. It is a whole-of-government priority. We want young people and children to be safe online.

It was interesting last year that when we brought in the pouches for schools and allocated about €9 million to it, there was an outcry in the Dáil. The Opposition attacked it. I cannot recollect whether Deputy Tóibín attacked it, but the Opposition said it was a waste of money and the wrong thing to do. The Deputy probably did attack it. The point is-----

It was a stupid thing to do.

It actually has worked. It is only one of many things we have to do, but maybe if people stopped the knee-jerk necessity of attacking Government for the sake of it because, from their perspective, they think it is the right thing to do, we could focus on the issue of the protection of children. In that instance, it was to give space to children to allow them to concentrate and socialise within the school environment. It is very good. It has worked and it is a good idea. It is something that Northern Ireland did before us on a pilot basis.

We need to do more in terms of age verification and we are looking at integrating an age verification tool into Ireland’s digital wallet. A voluntary pilot is envisaged in the coming months. Coimisiún na Meán is now at the heart of our online safety framework. It has been established fairly quickly in relative terms as our online safety and media regulator under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022. Europe has enacted the Digital Services Act and the EU terrorist content online regulation. They all form part of our framework. We have an online safety code implemented by Coimisiún na Meán and further work is being done on that. With regard to the European Union, we work with our European Union colleagues in terms of the regulatory environment to make sure we have the strongest possible frameworks in place to protect children. Admhaím gurb é an rud is tábhachtaí ar fad ná leanaí a chosaint. Níl aon amhras go bhfuil dainséar ann. Déanann sé damáiste do leanaí. Caithfidh muid gach aon iarracht é sin a stopadh.

First, the Government’s approach to this is shockingly poor and one-dimensional. It does not cover all of the Internet threats to children at the moment. When it comes to the Government’s plan to create a digital ID, there is no real detail. It is not well thought out and there has been no consultation with stakeholders. I have heard some of the Taoiseach’s party colleagues mention a public service card maybe being at the heart of this. Given that the Government has already broken the law twice with a public service card, I do not think that is a logical idea. The idea that we would mandatorily collect facial biometric data from millions of citizens is an invasive thing in a liberal democracy. There will be significant push-back, I believe, if access to social media is dependent on every individual within society providing materials like passports, etc., to social media companies. For all the critics there are of social media, social media is a public good. I have a different suggestion, and that is to stop young people having smartphones. That is easier to regulate and provide under law. It would go some way in reducing access to the content about which we all have a concern in this Chamber.

The Deputy spent the first three minutes attacking and condemning us and the last minute saying that if we are going to do something to protect children, we had better be careful not to do it. He has his reasons on civil-----

I am offering a solution.

On civil liberty grounds, he is now saying not to do that. Perhaps we need proper engagement in the House. In first three minutes, the Deputy spoke about how terrible we are in not protecting children and so forth. We are coming up with an age verification tool to protect children and he is telling us not to do that if it has implications for civil liberties and so on. That is basically what he is saying. However-----

I also suggested an alternative.

On the alternative, I am not clear about the feasibility of banning mobile phones in their entirety. We did it in schools and the Deputy opposed it.

No.

We did, and the Deputy opposed it.

No. I opposed the spending of €9 million for it.

The Deputy opposed the policy of enabling schools to ban mobile phones in schools and now he is telling me we should ban them all over the country, and for every child-----

Teachers and parents were laughing at the idea.

Thank you. I call on Deputy Aisling Dempsey.

Is the Deputy talking about children aged 12, 14, 15 or 16? Where is the cut-off?

Sixteen. I am saying the cut-off should be 16 years of age.

Sixteen years of age. Okay.

Thank you, Taoiseach. Deputy Dempsey is on her feet.

Yes. No problem.

That will be easy to implement, I would say.

Much easier.

Come on.