I move: “That the Bill be now read a Second Time.”
As the Minister will be aware, Ireland has become a very violent place in recent times. Sexual violence is increasing at a shocking rate and lives are being destroyed day in, day out, in Irish society. In 2011, 1,958 sexual offences were recorded whereas that figure had increased by 75% to 3,433 in 2021. In 2011, 447 rapes were recorded and that had doubled to 983 in 2021. Sexual assault by children of children is also significantly on the increase. Children at Risk in Ireland, CARI, a specialist and professional therapy service, stated that more children are coming to its services who have been sexually assaulted by children. It has seen an increase of 44% in the level of sexual abuse and sexually harmful behaviour of children by children. Many longitudinal studies show that when adolescents consume hardcore porn, they are six times more likely to engage in violent and aggressive sexual behaviour.
As to the drivers of this increase, there are many reasons it is happening and many reasons for the increase in violence in this country at the moment. There is no doubt that one of the issues is the proliferation of online hardcore pornography and violent pornography consumed by children. Today, eight- and nine-year-olds have access to explicit hardcore materials that would have been illegal for adults to consume even a generation ago. Research at the school of psychology at the University of Galway has shown that 60% of teenage boys have consumed hardcore pornography before the age of 13.
It is becoming so accessible that most parents now feel it is virtually impossible for them to exercise control over what their children are consuming. I spoke to a person recently who told me that last Christmas, when they looked at the iPad their ten-year-old uses for the last searches the child had made, the last two searches were one for Santa Claus and a second for a video on oral sex. That is the crazy clash of images and materials that is happening in children's lives at the moment.
Children are being sexualised at a far younger age. It is radically altering their perceptions of sex and their own understanding of what healthy relationships are, and it can lead to physical and mental health problems. In certain cases, it is leading to addiction. Pornography often contains scenes of serious aggression and violence, and there is significant evidence to show that children consuming this material are acting out what they see on the screen on other children.
There is an ocean of research on this material. When I raised this with the Government a number of years ago, those in government at the time spoke in grave tones about how terrible it was that children were consuming this, but they shrugged their shoulders when it came to action. They actually asked me about proof and many said it was not true. However, there is now an ocean of proof, evidence, facts and material. Marina Porter, who is a manager of the Donegal Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre said:
What we have observed is that the level of physical violence accompanying sexual violence has seriously escalated over the last couple of months. Multiple perpetrators in one crime are increasing and this is highly concerning.
It is shocking that this is happening. We have seen a number of very high-profile cases, such as the Ana Kriegel case, where the perpetrators of that shocking assault and murder were known to have accessed tonnes of heavily pornographic materials. Indeed, the phone of boy A, who wore a zombie mask during the attack, contained searches for child abuse and thousands of pornographic images, including sexual violence. I believe this horrific attack should have been enough to catapult the Government into some level of action but it was not. What happened was that the Government shrugged its shoulders in regard to taking responsibility for this.
What is happening in general to children throughout society is horrific. We have this perception that we live in a more progressive society and that, in some way, this generation is a better generation to be a child, but it is not. It is a significantly more difficult generation to be a child. The Department of Health surveyed young people to find out if they had made an attempt on their own life and one in ten young adults said they had. The same survey found that only one in 100 people over the age of 65 had ever made an attempt on their own life, so even though these people had lived far longer, the figure was ten times less in that regard. A total of 84,000 children are referred to Tusla annually and that figure increased by 14,000 in the past year. There are 55,000 people doing the leaving certificate annually but the number of children being referred to Tusla is rocketing past the number of children sitting the leaving certificate every year.
The Government is disconnected in many ways from what people think about this. A Women's Aid report found that 71% of people believe that pornography is harming society, not just pornography consumed by young children, and that pornography in general is leading to harm on society. That figure is 75% among women. Some 63% of people believe that pornography is leading to increased sexual violence in society and, again, that figure was far higher for women. Some 77% of women believe that pornography reduces men's respect for women and 81% believe it increased men's interest in violent sexual activity.
I also believe the Government is disconnected from what is happening internationally. I understand the Government's amendment states that this will somehow contravene European Union legislation in this regard.
The French Government has examined the dangers of pornography being consumed by children and has determined that websites providing this material will not be allowed to provide it to children in future. People who want to visit pornographic websites will have to install an application for a government-licensed digital certification to prove they are at least 18 years old. Sites that do not comply with this will be banned from publishing in France. The French courts have already blocked nine pornographic sites under this law, so it is already in place in another EU country. We can look at what is happening in Britain. There is really good research that I ask the Minister to look at from the Children's Commissioner for England that has shown pornography is having a serious detrimental effect on the behaviour of children as young as eight years of age. The commissioner, Rachel de Souza, stated:
For too long we have brushed the issue of pornography under the carpet as awkward, uncomfortable, or too difficult to solve. ... [we cannot] shy away from discussing the nature, scale and impacts of online pornography.
That, if you like, is a summary of the Government's approach to this issue over the last ten years. The commissioner has also stated the need to provide a decent age verification system to prevent this happening.
Despite all the evidence, all the reports from organisations, the work and support of victims of sexual abuse and all the developing best practice internationally, for some reason Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party have to date refused to protect children from the dangers of hardcore and violent online pornography. There may be ideological reasons for this. There are some who believe hardcore pornography could potentially have a benign influence on children. I listened to a contributor to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment curriculum process being interviewed by Pat Kenny and she said children as young as 12 years could be given the script of a pornographic film to help them to understand what pornography is about. We have this really strange situation where parents are doing their damnedest to prevent kids from consuming this material and there are some within the Department of Education who think we should be introducing this material to children on the crazy understanding that a 12-year-old has the mental capacity to be able to navigate this material. Some cite the difficulty of creating such a ban, while others see it as too hard, but I believe we have no excuse for not at least trying to solve the issue.
The question is why the Government has stood idly by for so long on this. It is interesting the Government is looking to ban the advertising of junk food to children because it can join the dots between children watching junk food on television and that damaging their health, but it cannot seem to join the dots between children consuming hardcore pornography and that damaging their health. The Government could make an approach to the Internet service providers. It could ask them outside of law to create an opt-in safe Internet service for families so the general Internet service would only provide material that is safe for families. Then if an adult wanted to have an Internet service that allowed for adult material, they could ask for that when they are applying for that. However, the Government has not done this.
We in Aontú have created a Bill that is a first step in the right direction. It will force the Government to make regulations on this. Our Bill deals with enforcement and offences. It mimics what has happened already with copyrighted film, which means that those who say this cannot be done can be shown that it already has been. Internet companies started to show films that were copyrighted, so Universal and all the film companies decided this was unfair because copyright was being circumvented and they were losing out on money. They went to the courts, the courts agreed with them and then they forced the Internet service providers, that is, the Eirs and Vodafones of the world, to block those websites from the Irish market. How come we can do it when it is for money, but we cannot when it is for the welfare of children or of women who could potentially be sexually assaulted due to this rape culture that is being generated as a result of this material? It is an indictment of all of us that this has been happening for the last 15 years, yet there has been no action on it.
Our Bill simply seeks to give the Minister the power to develop policy on this matter, to give ComReg the power to implement that policy and to ensure those companies breaking the policy are then told to abide by it. If they do not, they are being told to stop allowing websites to publish within this country. There is a right of appeal. This is not bad legislation for an Opposition party. Opposition parties often do their best to produce legislation but this Bill is very practical, real and structured. It offers a real opportunity. I plead with the Minister not to go ahead with her amendment and to allow this Bill go to Committee Stage and start the process whereby we protect children as young as eight to 12 years of age from becoming addicted to or habitually watching content that is violent, explicit and dangerous for them. I ask the Minister to take a step in stopping the development of the rape culture that is starting to exist in Ireland, powered by this type of material, and to ensure we have a response from the Government. I ask her not to kick the can down the road and say that the Government has plans, is considering doing something, may have a Bill to do this or is going to ask for a report from somebody else, and that maybe someone else will give the Government advice. Then five years will pass and the Minister and I will be standing in the Chamber again with nothing having been done.
