People will gather today at 12.30 p.m. at O'Reilly Hall in University College Dublin, UCD, in what I anticipate will be one of the biggest protests there has been in UCD in decades, and probably ever. I do not know. I do know that everyone in the college and in other colleges is talking about what happened to a medical student. This is not removed from what we are discussing today. Does the Minister seriously think the rise of the manosphere has no connection to the rise in violent misogyny and gender-based violence? If he believes that, he is living in cloud cuckoo land. Last night, I was surprised that "Prime Time" published some of the horrific messages that had been sent to this young woman that have accompanied the image that was shared of her after she had been drugged and raped. I am not going to read all of them because they are too horrific, but let us bring a bit of reality in here as to what young women are having to suffer every day on the Internet. These messages included, "You slutty garbage." I will not go into what they proposed to do to her next. They continued, "You obese slut bastard"; "cocky suing bitch"; "disgusting whore"; "complaining bitch"; and basically "I won't be happy until you're hanging from a tree." It is obviously disturbing that there are people studying medicine who would draft messages like that. They really should not be and I hope the Minister is going to do something about it. The Internet is not a safe place for women, but neither is the world arising from it, and what I have read out is not even the worst. The manosphere has been operating unchecked for years now. Teachers, the Rape Crisis Centre and everybody has been studying its impact. Andrew Tate has 10.8 million followers on Twitter alone. We all know the statistic about 23 minutes; a16- to 18-year-old young man who sets up an account will be bombarded. Our young men are being groomed to hate women and the Minister does not seem to think this is a problem, because he has proposed absolutely nothing to deal with it. He is not going to support this Bill today, but he has not told us what he is going to do about this issue. I have raised this matter before. This is not new and everybody has been telling the Minister this. Toxic masculinity has an impact on the safety of women and children. The institute of men's health has reported 73% of gen Z are consuming this. Sixty-one per cent of all men consume this toxic content regularly. It is being fed to young men at an alarming rate. The ideas it puts forward are that men should control women and that traditional gender roles are what we should have, and it is having a real impact. A third of young men believe that you cannot change your mind after consenting to sex, that at no point can you change your mind after that. Forty-six per cent of all men believe that people make up or exaggerate claims of non-consensual sex, according to a Dublin Rape Crisis Centre report. Forty percent of Irish men believe in traditionalist ideas of men and women, but it is much higher among younger men who are being fed this content. They agreed with or were unsure of statements such as "men who do not dominate in relationships are not real men"; it was 52% in relation to that. This is having an impact on young women and non-binary people. Sixty-seven per cent of schoolgirls said their school environment is not a safe place and 70% feel social media negatively affects their mental health. There is no discussion of International Women's Day on the Dáil schedule this week, which is outrageous because these issues are huge. I was thinking of reading out some of the comments I have been exposed to just for being a woman in public life, as I am sure other female TDs and other people have, and for people of colour it is even worse. The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, ASTI, has been reporting on this. A huge majority of educators note that online manosphere content negatively affects students. The Minister made a statement that Coimisiún na Meán is dealing with all this and that it is all in hand. What is he going to say to people who are gathering in UCD today, who absolutely understand the connection with these algorithms that are grooming young men to be violent towards women and hateful of women and the impact that is having on their lives? What will he say he is doing about it? Opposing this Bill really is shameful. We all know the Government is in thrall to the social media companies, such as Google. It never criticises a multinational company, particularly one from the US. That is just taken as read. We have seen that in its foreign policy, but this is having a real impact on people. It is having a real-life impact on their mental and physical health.

Sentiment score: -0.18