Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 February 2016
57. Deputy Finian McGrath asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if he will publish a national strategy on children’s cyber safety and to ratify United Nations treaties to protect children online; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4564/16]
View answerIn relation to the first part of the question, I have no plans to publish a National Strategy on Children’s Cyber Safety.
Responsibility for children’s safety when accessing the internet and social media extends across a number of Government Departments. Areas of concern include cyber bullying, accessing illegal or inappropriate content, and the dangers of posting content online.
The Action Plan On Bullying, which was published in January 2013, clearly recognised the necessity to tackle the issue of bullying in a holistic way which saw schools as pivotal, but placed the issue within a much wider social context. Cyberbullying is just one aspect of bullying but one, given the rapid expansion of access to technology by young people, that has come much more sharply into focus. The implementation of the Action Plan on Bullying, which is being led by the Department of Education and Skills, provides the framework for the Government’s absolute commitment to working with a broad base of interests to protect children and ensure a safer childhood.
The Children First National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children is also an important resource in the identification, investigation, assessment, reporting, treatment and management of child abuse, including bullying. Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has an important role in this regard.
My Department supports the National Youth Health Programme which is in partnership with the HSE and the National Youth Council of Ireland. The programme's aims are to provide a broad-based, flexible health promotion / education support and training service to youth organisations and to all those working with young people in out-of-school settings. The ‘Web Safety in Youth Work’ resource, available on the National Youth Council’s website, provides valuable advice to young people on reporting online behaviour and on passing on concerns about the protection and welfare of a child or young person.
In relation to illegal content and the posting of personal content online, the important role of parents in talking to their children and providing a space for them to explore issues and voice their concerns cannot be over-emphasised. Parents also have an important function in setting boundaries and implementing parental controls to ensure that their children are not accessing age-inappropriate material.
The Office for Internet Safety is an Executive Office of the Department of Justice and Equality and was established by the Government to take a lead responsibility for internet safety in Ireland, particularly as it relates to children. As part of its work it holds an annual Safer Internet Day. This year’s Safer Internet Day will be held on 9th February and the focus of the day is to highlight the issues around explicit self-generated images of minors being posted on the Internet, and how any image or video posted on the Internet immediately ceases to be private.
The Office for Internet Safety supports the Hotline.ie service, which provides an anonymous facility for Internet Users to report suspected illegal content, particularly Child Sexual Abuse Material, accidentally encountered online, in a secure and confidential way. In addition to Hotline.ie, there are a number of other websites such as Childline, webwise, Facebook and Twitter, that have the capacity to facilitate anyone to report a concern that they have come across online.
The second part of the Deputy’s question refers to the ratification of United Nations Treaties and I am answering on the basis that he is referring to Ireland’s ratification of the United Nations Second Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. My Department has a co-ordinating responsibility for implementation of the Convention and its related Protocols.
The ratification of the Protocol is pending, to ensure that all arrangements are in place to fully comply with the related obligations. The substantive criminal law elements of the Optional Protocol have largely been implemented by the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 and the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008.
On 23rd September 2015 the Minister for Justice and Equality published the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill. The Bill is currently being considered by Dáil Éireann. It includes wide-ranging provisions to enhance the protection of children and vulnerable persons from sexual abuse and exploitation. These provisions include new measures to protect children from online predators.
When enacted, the Bill will comply with the criminal law provisions of a number of international legal instruments including the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Ireland will then be in a position to proceed with its commitment to ratify the Protocol.
