Today in Australia, there is an outright ban on children under the age of 16 accessing certain apps on mobile phones and smartphone devices. They ran a campaign to protect their children and to ensure their mental health. Various forms of online abuse that children are subjected to on a daily basis are now treated equally in law.

What the authorities in Australia have done is harvest the data and left it there. As young people turn 16, they will be able to access it again.

I am not in favour of outright bans on phones, but I am certainly in favour of protecting our children online. A number of years ago, we in these Houses passed a Bill to make 16 the digital age of consent. The digital age of consent means that a person ticks a box and says that they have told their parents. That is it. That is the digital age of consent. We now have an opportunity, with Coimisiún na Meán and the various online safety codes, to go further. We have age ID cards for children who are old enough to go in to pubs and purchase alcohol. We have a provisional driving licences for people who are learning to drive. We need IDs for children in order to ensure that their digital age of consent is established properly and validly online. It is incumbent on tech companies to put in place a mechanism such that we can age verify everybody online. We have all the tech companies here. There is an opportunity to work collaboratively will all of them. If they are not prepared to work with the Government, it is incumbent on the Government to take control.