As the Minister of State knows, the purpose of the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences (Amendment) Bill is to try to ensure that we can avoid situations where individuals are taking advantage of technology. He mentioned that technology is moving so fast it is hard to keep up with it. That is certainly the point. He also made a valid point to the effect that the victims are primarily women and children, which means that the perpetrators are primarily men. That is something else that has to be considered in respect of this. For many years, social media, which is really antisocial media, has allowed the development of pornography and the spread and normalisation of hateful and harmful abuse. An element of that has been happening for some time and no checks have been put in place. So many people online are anonymous. We do not know who they are and there is no way of finding out who is behind all of this. The tech companies will not tell us who they are either. These companies have a responsibility. If they can say they are only facilitating what is happening, then the minimum they can do is identify those they are facilitating. At present, they do not do that to any great extent. The purpose of the legislation is to deal with this relatively new phenomenon whereby the technology that is used has the capacity to visually undress and sexualise children and women, and use that as a weapon. This is about a power imbalance. All of these things are about power. It is about people who think that they have the power to humiliate and degrade others and that this enrich and lift them up. It is about time that we stepped in firmly, not just here in Ireland but globally, to ensure that we prevent any more of this from happening.

Sentiment score: -0.09