Paul Donnelly
Dublin West · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“It is bizarre that the State does not fund digital devices. What is the point of free school books when people have to find hundreds of euro to pay for devices? In a country that is home to most of the largest IT and social media companies in the world, surely, we must be leading the way in terms of technology in our schools.”
“I welcome the motion. The matter to which it relates is something in respect of which Sinn Féin has been campaigning consistently for many years. There is no doubt that costs are rising and putting families under severe pressure over the summer months.”
“This matter needs to be addressed. A letter from the Minister, however nicely worded, has simply not worked. We are often told that Ireland is a world leader in terms of quality educational systems. What we need is fair and equitable access to the education system for all of our children and young people.”
“What this House does in terms of regulation and ensuring the companies driving all of this do so in the proper way and are monitored, with proper due diligence done on how AI impacts society, is very important. We know AI has positive impacts but it also has extremely negative impacts.”
“I met with the parents of Grace Lynch. I commend them on their advocacy on road safety and tackling scramblers and illegal e-bikes and scooters. On Monday, hundreds of residents in Hartstown marched around Hartstown Park to highlight the issue of antisocial behaviour, scramblers and illegal e-bikes in the parks.”
“I welcome the Bill and the opportunity to speak on it. It is critically important. AI is something we use every single day, whether we know it or not. Many of the applications we use have a major component of AI. In many areas it has a really useful purpose. Students and workers use it, and people in here use it on a daily basis.”
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“There are hundreds of van drivers, delivery drivers and Deliveroo workers. All of those companies that currently deliver are going to see this as an opportunity to get rid of human beings delivering packages. They will see it as a way to operate much more effectively. I would invite anyone who does not know what we are talking about to come see. I was out canvassing a couple of months ago and we had comrades down from Belfast. They were looking at the drones above them asking what was going on. We told them it was coffee being delivered or someone getting their lunch or breakfast delivered. They were absolutely flabbergasted and could not believe it. Not everybody is aware of this but it is coming into every community and it is something that will be a huge issue for people. Another issue is privacy.”
“What most people are really concerned about and cannot get their heads around is the scaling of this. What is it going to look like? At the moment, there are five drones operating from Millenium Park. They can do a delivery every couple of minutes so, in an hour, five drones could make a couple of hundred deliveries. What will it look like when there are hundreds or thousands of drones in the sky? There is no doubt that other companies will look at this and say it is a very cheap and effective way to deliver products. It will not just be coffee and food. It will be small packages and deliveries. We see the development of these technologies in the war in Ukraine. We see the size of some of the drones and what they are used for. Some of these packages will probably be huge.”
“It would be untrue to say there is either unanimous opposition to this or unanimous support for it. There are very mixed feelings in Dublin 15 about its operation and impact. We were waiting to see what the impact would be in a couple of years. It was clear that noise was going to be the big impact. I simply do not accept the drone operators' views on the impact of noise as drones hover over your house. Anybody who has seen or experienced it will tell you that the noise of the drone as it drops off the package is unacceptable. To be fair, when you are walking your dog and the drone is at its peak height, you can hear it but it is not massively significant. It can be a little bit annoying but the impact is not as big as it is when a delivery is being made to your door or the door of someone else nearby.”
“Businesses do not seem to be confused about what they think they can do, however. This is a real example of the Government not getting its act together with regard to new technologies. We are going to see this on a monthly basis with the development of AI technology. We are going to be scrambling to try to deal with things literally every week. I live just down the road from Millennium Park, where the drone take-off zone is located. To be honest, when some of this was developed three years ago, I was intrigued. I walked the dog there pretty much every day - I still walk in that park - to see what was going in there. We saw how it was being developed and we saw drones. I was genuinely interested to see how this would work and the impact it would have on the community. I knew it was a trial period and wanted to see how it would develop.”
“I welcome the Bill from Deputy O'Gorman and the opportunity to again speak on this issue. It is a really important issue for Dublin West but it will also have an impact right across the country. It is interesting that it comes this week in light of the scrambler issue. I have raised the issue of Garda use of drones. Gardaí have been trained in the use of drones. I have been asking about this since 2021. An Garda Síochána has drones and gardaí have been trained in their use since 2023. However, they are not being used because regulations from An Garda Síochána are still awaited. There were legislative issues but these were cleared up by the Minister, who said there were none. It has gone back to An Garda Síochána and now it seems regulations are needed. There is just confusion about this across the board.”
“It is really important that we sit down with the people who are directly involved and engaged in providing those supports. As I have said, I have met many guardians ad litem over the 20 years I worked with them. They are incredible people who work really hard.”
“It is their opinion that their right to representation should never depend on the level of engagement of parents or their consent and that it should be possible to realise this right for all children. Some 92 guardians ad litem , highly skilled and experienced professionals who have serious concerns about the proposed new guardian ad litem service for children in Ireland, are reluctant to enter this new service. These concerns have repeatedly been raised directly with the new service but there has been a lack of meaningful engagement. That lack of engagement with guardians ad litem is really concerning. Over the last couple of days, we have heard repeatedly that the Minister has refused, or has not been able, to meet these guardians.”
“In stark contrast, from the commencement of the new guardian ad litem service, guardians will only be able to ask the national service, which will come under the remit of the Minister, Deputy Foley, for permission to do any of these things. There will be a process, which has yet to be confirmed, that guardians will have to go through to get legal representation. Guardians ad litem are concerned about this logic. The State now sees them as only necessary in circumstances where the parents and Tusla are not engaged. The role of guardians ad litem is not to prop up the case for the State or the parents, but to be an independent representative voice in the best interests of the child.”
“To take a hypothetical situation, Tusla and the parents will automatically have access to all the reports about the child’s legal representation, attend all court dates, challenge evidence, procure reports and assessments, bring contacts or applications to seek directions under the Child Care Act and to appeal any decision of the court that is of concern to them. In the current independent system, guardians ad litem can do all of these things on behalf of the child and are fully legally represented in court. There is currently no waiting list for guardians ad litem and legal services are immediately engaged without any delay.”
“Just to read from their comments, the most concerning issues that arise from the response being provided is the ongoing insistence that the guardians independence will not be affected, alongside the sentence referring to ensuring legal representation for guardians ad litem where necessary. The decision as to whether it is necessary for a child to have legal representation through the GAL rests with the State. The State has so often had to make apologies to children for not hearing their voices. It was also stated this will be a massive step backwards. Here is an example.”
“At the outset, I would like to say I worked for the northern area health board, the HSE and Tusla. I worked in the same place but obviously changed over into different organisations over those 20 years when the responsibilities changed. I worked as a family support worker and later as a child and family support network co-ordinator. I commend so many people. I know it is really difficult work. I commend the social workers, the family support workers and the care workers. The social care workers in Tusla do an absolutely phenomenal job and those in the organisations that are around it and are supported by it. I want to talk specifically about guardians ad litem , GALs. I have only a limited amount of time, so I am going to try to get through this as quickly as I can.”
“Will the Minister withdraw what he said because that is an absolute slur on those organisations who took the time to come in here to give their life experiences?”
“The Minister said he knows the additional costs faced by people with disabilities. On the topic of employment, he said he wants to state his full commitment. On the last page he stated he is pleased to begin this work. How long has he been in power? How long have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael been in power, yet people are still consistently in poverty? The Minister's statement on the last page is an absolute disgrace. He said we should be extremely careful about using alarmist language. Is he blaming disability groups for being alarmist? Is that what he is saying? They are the ones who are telling us. This is why we have motions. They are telling us. Is the Minister blaming those organisations for being alarmist over €1,400 being cut from the budget? This is an absolute disgrace.”
“I too thank the Social Democrats for this motion. Life is difficult enough for people with disabilities. They spend their life fighting for basic services – OT, speech and language, physiotherapy and mobility equipment. I know parents who have to fundraise for wheelchairs and other equipment for disabled children. Being able to get around is something we take for granted, but people with disabilities have to plan how to get around, be it on a bus, a taxi or a train. When disabled people get older, they have to fight for their independence. They have to wait up to 20 years for a home to suit their needs. Do they really have to struggle now to heat their homes? Is that what we are talking about? The evidence is irrefutable. People living with disabilities live in consistent poverty. I will go back to the Minister's speech.”
“We desperately need separate facilities for people who present at hospitals with mental health issues. They should not be in the normal emergency department as it is not appropriate. They should be in a separate space receiving mental health services.”
“Genesis provides low-cost counselling for people in the Dublin 15 area. Six years ago, I used to work as a child and family support worker and used to try to access CAMHS supports for young people. To be honest, circumstances are probably worse now than when I left the job. That is really bad because we are talking about children and other young people trying to access services. Early intervention is so important. Just last year, in response to several serious incidents in Dublin 15 and Connolly Hospital, Transport Infrastructure Ireland constructed railings across a bridge where there were two suicides. It is terribly sad that we are building infrastructure outside a hospital to stop suicides. It should be inside. That is the most important thing.”
“As has been said repeatedly, mental health services are in crisis. We all know this because we deal with people. I express my solidarity with all of the people who work in mental health services, including in the community and in hospitals, because they are doing their best to cope with the situation they are in, despite the lack of staff and supports. By the time many people end up in hospital, they will often have tried to access community mental health supports over and over again, sometimes over years. We all know that early intervention is the most important thing. I have constantly raised the case of Genesis, a counselling service in Dublin 15. For a relatively small amount of money, an extra 4,000 hours could be provided for people in the Dublin 15 area. Could we look into something like this?”
“I am sorry but I do not accept that taking the details of more than 200 victims of abuse is good enough. By the time the perpetrators, those people who created those images, get to court, there will be thousands of victims. I apologise to the Ceann Comhairle; I will finish with this but it is really important. If Joe Bloggs sitting in his bedroom had created this technology, that house would have been raided, the computers would have been seized, that person would have been in court and he would have been charged. The reason that has not happened is because it is Elon Musk, Trump's buddy, and X. That is the only reason.”
“I simply cannot believe that this Government is as outraged by the actions of Musk and X as the Irish people are because it did not deal with this immediately. I am not talking about looking at new legislation, considering doing something down the road, having a look at it or seeing if it fits into some category or other. The Government did not go to An Garda Síochána and say that it knows that digital images of child abuse are being produced down the road. It is mind-boggling that this has not been done yet. I genuinely ask the Minister of State if she can imagine any other circumstances in which the Garda knows that a company is enabling the distribution of child pornography and the abuse of women who put up photos online on their own social media profiles and no action is taken against the producers of that technology.”
“Grok has manipulated photos of people to create images, often removing their clothes or making them pose in suggestive ways. Members of An Garda Síochána were here yesterday. They said the organisation was dealing with over 200 new cases of women and children being abused. Can the Minister of State imagine that? There were 200 cases in the last couple of weeks. The Garda knows where they are being produced. It is just down the road from here in X's headquarters. That is where these images are being distributed from. I acknowledge what Deputy McAuliffe said because he was absolutely spot on. He said that there are people sitting at computers asking Grok, which is just down the road, to do despicable things to women and children. They could not produce those images without the technology of Grok and X. They could not do it.”
“The AI genie is definitely out of the bottle. It is a technology with huge positive potential for medicine, mental health, construction, media, education and all parts of human interaction. In the wrong hands, however, AI has the potential to do huge harm. Palantir Technologies is a significant presence in Israel, providing the Israeli military and intelligence agencies with advanced AI and data analysis tools. What does that do? It creates kill lists for the Israeli military. It also enables drones and remote machine guns to identify individuals in the West Bank and Gaza and to shoot and kill them without human interaction. That is what AI can do. That is the danger of this type of technology in the wrong hands. I will go back to Grok and Elon Musk's X.”
“With the billions of euro we now have in extra taxes, is there an opportunity to provide sports facilities for those young people, not only in Dublin 15 but right across the State? There is a huge issue.”
“I have been in touch with many sports clubs in Dublin 15. It is an area where the population of young people is exploding. There are groups like Corduff FC, Tyrrelstown GAA club, the football club, Plunkett’s, the cricket club and the boxing clubs. I have met with the executives, coaches and mentors of all of these clubs over the last while. They spend countless hours providing facilities and training for young people every week. They all say one thing, which is that there is a lack of facilities, particularly winter training facilities. There has been an explosion in the number of young girls engaging in sport but there is a lack of toilet facilities in parks and other facilities.”
“Young people are flying along on electric bikes and scooters at 40 km/h and 50 km/h, and gardaí are on pushbikes. The technology is there, but it is not being used. There is merit in some of the legislation, but Sinn Féin and I have massive concerns about the speed of the roll-out of the Bill. It needs to be slowed down because much more scrutiny is needed.”
“They got promotions and moved on, but it left us with one garda to cover an area that includes Finglas, Blanchardstown and Cabra. Many years ago, I would say to gardaí that we needed a new Garda station and they would say that we just needed more gardaí. Now they are telling us that not alone do we need more gardaí, we also need a new Garda station because of the size of Dublin West. In the context of technology, for the past four years I have been asking about drones for the Garda. I have been getting ridiculous answers and contradictory information from both the Department and the Garda. We have that technology, but it is not being used. I will give a simple example. There are huge estates in Dublin 15, and gardaí are still cycling around them on pushbikes. It is ridiculous.”
“The Israelis are embedded in a lot of this AI facial recognition technology. We know what they do with that; they kill Palestinians. They kill them on a daily basis using facial recognition. We know this technology is out there. We know it is being abused by police forces. I am certainly not saying that is what will happen but with the technology and the information they have, what companies will be subcontracted to hold this information? I have huge concerns around that. Technology can only bring us so far. In my constituency, and I have referenced this before, we recently benefited from a number of new gardaí in our area. Five gardaí were recently attested and sent to Dublin 15, but we lost four due to promotions. Fair play to them.”
“There are huge gaps in the Bill around protection and the use of AI. This is newish technology and the people need to be protected from abuse of this. We know from history that pretty much every police force pushes the boundaries of what is right and what it sees as being in its interests. It is our responsibility to ensure that when facial recognition technology - which is used in conjunction with AI - is used, it is used in an appropriate way and not abused by any sections of the State. There is a strong need for rigid safeguards to ensure sensitive data is stored securely and not inappropriately shared, referencing past incidents where Garda data handling was an issue. I am deeply concerned about who holds this information and where it is held. We have seen that a lot of these companies are American companies and Israeli companies.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I commend the work of An Garda Síochána. In my district in Dublin West they do incredible work on a daily basis. We saw the difficulties they faced during the disgraceful riots in Dublin and sometimes during those incidents we really see how effective they can be in protecting society. While we welcome the move to introduce the use of body-worn cameras, which is seen as a necessary tool to protect the Garda and the public, we do have concerns around this Bill and particularly around facial recognition technology. There are deep concerns citing potential issues with racial profiling and its problematic implementation in other jurisdictions. We have seen time and again where concerns have been raised where this technology is actually in place.”
“The Tánaiste spoke earlier about planning for housing but there is a big job to be done in terms of planning for schools. We get these issues raised with us constantly with regard to the planning section of the Department of education. I ask the Tánaiste to raise this with the Minister to see if we can get a resolution so that the school can be built.”
“The Department claims that it received the documentation on 31 October 2025. There was a delay of at least four months, despite the fact that this had been promised. Is the Minister for Education and Youth aware that the Department has had little meaningful communication with the schools and has not responded to the design team's proposals? It stated that a Department official will carry out a review addendum report but says it is not possible at present to provide a timeframe for the completion of that review. The schools were told that this would be done in the first quarter of 2025, which is nearly a year ago at this stage. We discovered that there was another delay in October and a four-month gap where nothing was done, effectively. Surely there is something amiss in the planning section of the Department.”
“I am speaking today on behalf of St. John Bosco's junior and senior boy's schools and Mary, Help of Christians girl's school on the Navan Road in Dublin 7. I received a letter, which states: "Our community school has been waiting years for progress and despite repeated assurances from the Department, including a clear commitment that a stage 2a review would be completed in the quarter 1 of 2025, we have been informed of yet another delay." I sent that letter to the Department of Education, which responded to the effect that in early June 2025 a further meeting was held with the wider design team, the school authorities and the Department. I have since discovered that although that meeting happened in June, the documentation that should have been submitted subsequently was not submitted until four months late.”
“Most of society views cigarettes now as something that should be in the past. We cannot let vapes become something of the future.”
“We can separate that piece to ensure we can keep that in place and help those people. The studies show that it is more effective in helping people to reduce their cigarette use or come off cigarettes than some of the other nicotine replacement products. The downside of it is worse, however. We have to get the balance right. It is clear that those who are producing these vapes are definitely targeting young people. If we can get a grip on that, it would be a really important piece of work for our young people. We have taken major strides in stopping young people from smoking. We need to put the same effort, time and energy into ensuring that people do not just swap and that industry does not use this as an opportunity to say it recognises cigarettes are bad and dangerous.”
“The illegal ones are absolutely frightening. The last thing I will touch on is the environmental piece. It is addressed in the Bill which is really welcome. I am a volunteer with Clonsilla Tidy Towns and the Royal Canal clean-up. We have great groups in Blanchardstown and Castleknock that are helping to clean up the environment. Schools are constantly at it, making people aware of environmental impacts. The environmental impacts of what makes up the vapes are quite worrying. They are just thrown on the streets, in our parks, rivers and lakes. All of that is leaking into our environment. I welcome the Bill. There has to be a far more comprehensive response to vapes. It needs to be quicker. This industry has positive elements in trying to help people come off cigarettes.”
“It is the way they are being marketed, produced, sold and targeted that is of real concern to anybody in the community. I know of people who have never smoked or touched a cigarette in their life and are now vaping to beat the band. It is just shocking that there is now this method, which is sold and marketed as described earlier, with all the different flavours and colours. It is marketed at people to get them hooked on nicotine, pure and simple. The only purpose of vapes is to get people hooked into nicotine. That is of real concern. I was just doing some research and noticed the chemicals that are in there such as formaldehyde, carcinogens, leading to lung scarring, heart disease, neurological issues and obviously addiction to nicotine. That is in the legal stuff. That is what we know in terms of the legal vapes.”
“The HSE found that 20% of retailers failed to meet age-restricted sales requirements, leading to thousands of vape seizures and closure orders against dozens of premises. Even the scale and number of shops where they are being sold pales into insignificance compared to the problem we are seeing with vapes. The Journal did an undercover survey and found illegal vapes that breach EU rules on warnings, nicotine and tank size were being sold at 80% of the places they went to. Those were not even within EU rules. It is just shocking. We have no idea what these people are ingesting. There is evidence that vapes can have a real impact on reducing cigarette use and can help people to come off cigarettes. Of course that is really welcome.”
“I am glad this Bill is being brought forward today and I welcome the ban on single-use vapes. Vapes are something that we really need to get a grip on. I also agree that unfortunately, the Government is playing catch-up. Selling to under-18s is still continuing. The HSE is not carrying out enough inspections, and convictions for the sale of vapes to children and young people are still extremely low. We only need to open our eyes as we walk around our constituencies and communities to see children and young people openly vaping on their way to school and home from school, and in places where young people hang around. It is deeply worrying. These products should not be in the hands of children. Investigations into vape shops reveal widespread non-compliance, with one Dublin probe finding illegal sales at 13 out of the 16 stores visited.”
“We may finally see the end of this problem for the residents. Being honest, it is something that has really frustrated people over the past 20-odd years. As I said, I went back and checked my files and it was 14 years ago when I first raised it. Hopefully, this is the last time I do. I appreciate the response and we will keep it under review and see how we get on.”
“It is an interesting reply. In some ways, it probably makes sense in that the pipe is now disused and has been moved eastward. I assume it has moved eastward towards Damastown because there were recently major pipe works along that road. We are probably currently dealing with the last bits of it because if it is not being used and is empty, there maybe some residue leftover. In the next couple of months, we will continue to monitor it and I look forward to it being sealed up and concreted over. That should hopefully get rid of that problem along Church Road and finally get a resolution to this. I welcome the response. The best thing we can do now is possibly just monitor this to make sure the works Uisce Éireann says are going to be carried out will be done as quickly as possible.”
“At this stage, I am appealing Government for the sake of the residents. There are people who have lived in that estate and those areas for 40 years and in the past 20 years, they have been constantly told this is going to be resolved and unfortunately, it has not. As I said, in recent weeks it has got really bad.”
“The reason I am raising it tonight is because in recent weeks it has got really bad. It has been raised at Fingal County Council and with Irish Water but it does not seem to be resolved at this stage. I appeal to the Minister to maybe sit down with us and Irish Water to try to figure out a long-term plan for this. In my opinion, the long-term plan is for that pipe to be moved. As I said, we have a situation whereby Fingal County Council has built close to 1,000 houses. There are currently 800 or 900 houses there in a place called Church Fields. It is social, affordable and cost-rental housing. It is a lovely estate but we said at the time if this sewage smell was not resolved, then we will have huge problems. We were putting people literally next to it and I find that really frustrating.”
“In fairness to Uisce Éireann, it has come back to us on numerous occasions and told us it has put new plant machinery in, new scenting machines, cleaned out the sewage pipes and sealed the shores along the road where this problem is. However, unfortunately, it keeps coming back. I have comments here from local residents. Even today, one resident said: It has been there for years. They have built around it. It is rotten. It is like a rotten egg, a chemical smell or sulphur. They said it was cleared and flowing. It is back again. As long as I am living here, the smell has always been that way but recently it is worse. It is comment after comment and it is hard to believe when you are there and drive through that area, you have to roll the windows up in your car. It is that bad at times; it is not all of the time but it is consistent enough.”
“Honestly, I cannot believe I am here in 2025 talking about this issue because 14 years ago, when I was standing for local elections, I raised this issue as one of the major issues within the Mulhuddart area. We talked on top of a hill beside Mulhuddart cemetery and that piece of land now has 800 homes on it. There are now in the region of 2,500 to 3,000 houses within the curtilage of this issue and stench coming from a pipe which comes from a pumping station in Kilbride and Hollystown in County Meath. It peaks at the area I just talked about, where there are vents that are emanating this horrendous smell. For the past 20 years, we have constantly tried to get this issue resolved between Fingal County Council that originally had its water department and which then transferred over to Uisce Éireann.”
“Is it now time to look at funding for the future? We know if we delay, then it will cost billions and billions more. This has been in the planning for 20 plus years. It was delayed because of the recession. At the time, maybe you could understand that but now there is no excuse. There is no excuse whatsoever, given the total gridlock on the M50 and surrounding areas, not to proceed with metro west. I urge the Minister, when he talks to his colleagues around the Cabinet table, to bring this forward. We have been talking about this for seven or eight years now. Let us bring it forward and get it delivered for people right the way from Tallaght all the way to the airport.”
“Transport Infrastructure Ireland has stated that it has done all it can physically do and that solutions require significant policy changes, increased public transport and investment in alternatives. Metro west would provide links to the new DART+ rail line, which will go from Maynooth to the city centre. It is designed to link at St. Mochtas Football Club in Clonsilla with DART+, providing a direct link to the city centre. It would also link with the huge developments now being built at Kellystown, Clonsilla and Castleknock, and provide transport links to the Blanchardstown Centre, the National Aquatic Centre, the sports campus at Abbotstown, the Dublin economic zone and on to the airport. Given our road network system is now pretty much at capacity in the city, is it not time we have a real look at metro west?”
“Transport Infrastructure Ireland has acknowledged that the motorway is at its limit with little more physical capacity to add forcing a reliance on other solutions. This has led to extremely long commute times of sometimes more than three hours, gridlock for minor incidents and a negative impact on the economy, people and surrounding communities because it does not just affect the M50. It affects our community as well when the traffic is backed up all through the N3, through Blanchardstown and Dublin 15 and up to Tyrrelstown. Experts and officials point to a significant investment in public transport such as DART and Luas, better cycling infrastructure and policy changes to shift commuters away from cars as the only real fix.”
“For those unfamiliar with it, it is a metro link from Tallaght through Clondalkin, Lucan and Liffey Valley shopping centre into Dublin 15 and around to Blanchardstown shopping centre, the National Aquatic Centre and the Dublin economic zone, where it is proposed to have up to 50,000 workers; and from Meakstown to the airport. The proposed metro line has been protected by various councils through county development plans and is mostly a greenfield site. Last week, it was announced that the M50 motorway in Dublin is officially at capacity and maxxed out with record traffic levels exceeding Celtic tiger numbers leading to severe congestion. It is now carrying 160,000 vehicles every day on average. The peak is closer to 190,000, making it Ireland's busiest road.”
“A substantial amount of people's money is being spent on a yearly basis, and most of this spending is very welcome. However, significant moneys have been wasted in cases like the Leinster House bicycle shed and the delays in the construction of the national children's hospital. The delays to metro north could cost tens of millions of euro. This long-delayed and vital infrastructure is costing billions more than when it was first proposed. This brings me to another project that has been proposed for many years in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies. I refer to the metro west project, which was cancelled during the recession by Leo Varadkar and pushed back until 2035.”
“Youth advocates, counsellors and teachers are telling us that they are hearing overly sexualised language and reports of young people mimicking this hardcore pornographic content thinking that it is normal. It is too easy for children and young people to access these sites and we must do everything to support young people as they navigate their youth. It is clear that money, greed and profit are the only motivators for online companies, be they social media or other types of online content. Just as we heavily regulate harmful material in all other aspects of life, such as smoking, chemicals, gambling, alcohol and drugs, we must heavily regulate online media. The time for hands off is over. Self-regulation is no regulation.”
“Within 20 minutes of new users going online, those algorithms push extremely harmful material towards them - overly sexualised content, self-harm, gambling, hate-filled racist content, all the things we all agree are harmful to young people. Sinn Féin supports age verification, which must be strengthened using new technology. Social media companies both inside and outside the EU must be held equally responsible. I would like to talk about non-social media online content. This is where I would support a ban on young people up to the age of 16 or possibly 18 accessing hardcore pornographic sites. There is ample evidence that children and young people are accessing these sites, which is utterly unacceptable.”