I request an amendment to the Order of Business that No. 17 be taken before No. 1. This is for the purpose of introducing the Protection of Children (Online Age Verification) Bill 2026. This is a revised version of a Bill I introduced in this House two years ago, which was passed at the time subject to a timed amendment. It reflects the fact that while good work may be done by Coimisiún na Meán in the regulatory space and while the Government may have its own plans with regard to social media, pornography is a distinct problem, especially for young people and it is highly damaging to them. We need clear criminal law to set a parameter that if proper age verification is not carried out, subject to some reasonable defences, thus enabling an under-age person to access pornography, an offence will have been committed. We need that clarity in our primary legislation in this country. I thank Oisín Kennedy and his staff at the Bills Office for working at short notice to enable this to reach this point today. It is a busy time of the year for them and I appreciate their help and co-operation on this matter.

I ask for a debate on the recent report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Drugs Use on the decriminalisation of certain drugs and the repeal of section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. I have been on the record expressing major concern about such a recommendation. I do not think this proposal will have many friends among the responsible medical experts and researchers on the impact of drugs in our society. I have been and am critical of the centrist parties for, to my mind, caving in to the left and being captured in some way on this issue. This is a permissive and dangerous approach to be taken. The committee noted that the small sample of jurisdictions where decriminalisation had already been implemented reported an increase in drug consumption in public areas. With the committee members believing that local authorities should be required to discourage and reduce consumption in public areas, including through the use of local authority by-laws like those governing alcohol consumption, we need to get real. That is a complete dereliction of duty. Does anybody imagine that in some of these left-led councils we will have such by-laws?

What we need in this as in other areas is clear law that discourages certain forms of irresponsible behaviour. We have gotten to a stage where we do not want to expect people to be responsible as a matter of law for their own personal consumption habits. You hear stories, for example, of dinner parties in Dublin and people talking about the things you can order online, and we can also order this stuff. The law needs to have a clear view on that and to say this is wrong. I sometimes think that part of the dynamic behind this push for change is that some middle-class people do not want their little darlings to be on the wrong side of the law because of their personal drug consumption habits. The law needs to state this clearly. How you treat people who come before the law is where you can moderate your approach, give people a second chance and get them onto a so-called health-led approach. The term health-led is a euphemism for an abandonment of courage and principle. Of course you can have a health-led approach, but you can have an even more successful health-led approach if you back it up by clear law that prohibits having drugs for personal use, as does section 3 of the current Misuse of Drugs Act.

I second Senator Mullen's amendment to the Order of Business.