I am delighted to welcome the Minister of State. I know I will not get from her the typical departmental answer that I am sometimes given.
I will be very glad if the Minister of State can explain the Government's policy on the availability of pornographic videos in Ireland. The provisions of the Video Recordings Act, 1989, were brought into force in three phases. First, the backlog of pornographic videos which had been seized by customs and the Garda in the 1980s in the wake of the video nasties controversy and the list of prohibited works published were brought forward. Second, the licensing of all video outlets, wholesale and retail, was introduced. Third, in May 1994, the regulations for video classifications were introduced. These provided that all video recordings for release on the Irish market after September 1994 had to carry the certificate of the Official Film Censor's office. This position still pertains.
As the Minister of State knows, the classifications are the following – for general release, PG which means parental guidance, over-12, over-15 and over-18. Beyond over-18s certificates do not exist. Other videos which are not so classified are prohibited. The classification is almost the same as that in the United Kingdom except that they have an additional grade R18 which means restricted 18. This covers soft-porn videos which are sold or leased from sex shops. When classification was introduced, it was the intention that all pre-September 1994 titles would eventually be classified. This has not happened and the sex shops here exploit this classification loophole.
There are between 20 and 30 sex shops in Ireland with licences to sell videos. They really have been quite clever because when the owners set themselves up, they make sure they obtain a licence to sell videos. These licences are issued by the censor's office. Hard core videos are sold for about £50 each in these shops and the shop owners make sure that those they are selling were made prior to 1994 and hence, they are not classified. If I show the Minister of State this huge book of video titles which have been classified since 1994, she will see that there are about 12 or 14 to the page and there are 150 pages. There are a very large number of videos which have come into this country since September 1994 which were considered unsuitable but the position regarding the non-classification of pre-September 1994 videos prevails. I have found it very easy for someone else to obtain videos for me called, for example, "Raunchy Randy Ravers", "Red Hot and Raw" and "She-Females", which are entirely unsuitable, I would have thought, to be distributed without classification. However, because these were made in 1991, they are not covered by the legislation so there is a large loophole there.
This is a most lucrative business. The numbers of sex shops around the country increase by the month and, as I said, they do not have to have the type of licences to set up as they do in the United Kingdom. There was much excitement when the Ann Summers shop arrived in O'Connell Street but I advise the Minister of State that it is a fairly mild establishment compared to the others. In the United Kingdom, there are licensed sex shops which sell videos which have been classified as R18 by the British Board of Film Classification. We have no regulations to cover pornographic videos except those outlawing child pornography which means, as I said, we turn a blind eye to the pre-1994 product.
Much research has been carried out on the effect on children of watching such videos. These videos are widely used by paedophiles to, as they say, soften up young victims and desensitise them to what is being done to them. There is a huge volume of such videos available and once they are in people's homes, they will be seen by children because while one set of parents who have bought them will be careful about putting them away, amazingly, they will not be policed in all homes. Of course, children will get to watch them.
The availability of porn or otherwise is really a political decision. Banning it totally can simply drive it underground but the present situation is ridiculous. There should be some sort of regulation as to where and when pornographic videos are available. Staff at the Film Censor's office have been in contact with officials from the Minister of State's Department and with the video trade and they said they are in a position to classify the pre-1994 videos. The samples of these works which I have seen are beyond most people's imagination. Forgive me for referring to it, but four hours of anal sex is on one of these videos and one would need the fast forward but ton for quite a lot of it because it is so boring after the first shock effect. Does the Minister intend to take up the Film Censor's office on their offer to classify pre-1994 videos? What about introducing another classification such as R18 which they have in the United Kingdom?
