It is “difficult” to get gardaí to show up to incidents they are called about, a Fine Gael Senator has said.
Regina Doherty made the comments as she said it was “far-fetched” to suggest that gardaí would use new EU regulations on child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to “sit down and be looking at your photographs”.
Ms Doherty made the remarks during hustings for some of the candidates vying for election as an MEP in the Dublin constituency.
The European Parliament hopefuls were speaking at a Children’s Rights Alliance event focusing on online safety.
Sitting MEP Clare Daly said the CSAM regulation was “one of the most controversial pieces of legislation in EU history”.
She said: “What it has mandated is the mass indiscriminate searching of all private communications, including encrypted ones.
“Hugely controversial, hundreds of NGOs are having huge problems with it, I, as an MEP, have a massive problem with that.”
Ms Daly said that it was an “absolute invasion of fundamental rights to privacy”, but would also not work and instead drive CSAM “underground”.
Sitting Green Party MEP Ciaran Cuffe said it was “challenging” to strike the right balance between privacy and targeting CSAM.
He added: “I’m not convinced that allowing big tech to scan everything that is on your device is the way to go.
“That’s seen as a quick and easy solution that is promoted by big tech itself and I’m also very wary of the power of lobbyists in Brussels.”
Ms Doherty responded: “The CSAM [regulation] was to make all of those companies – who already have access to all of the stuff that we’re sharing online and probably access to stuff that we don’t even know that they have a good access to by forms that we’ve signed up to on our phones – report child sexual abuse material.
“They’re not interested in what we have in our cornflakes.
“And I’m not being disrespectful, I mean we all know how difficult it is when you ring the guards to get them to show up for something that’s happening outside your house now.
“You think they’re going to sit down and be looking at your photographs in the way that people who have mega concerns would say they are? I think it’s probably a bit far-fetched.”
Ms Doherty said a “happy medium” could be found to regulate the companies to protect children from “heinous forces”.
At the event, the Children’s Rights Alliance called on the candidates to ensure a high bar is set at European level to regulate social media giants and protect young people’s safety online.
Social Democrats candidate Sinead Gibney said young people were being “scarred” due to a lack of effective regulation, adding: “Today, we’ve only seen blunt instruments applied to the problem.”
She said: “There is no sophistication or finesse in terms of how we’re tackling it.”
Labour TD and candidate for Europe Aodhán Ó Ríordán said not enough was being done in terms of regulation.
He added: “We have had bad actors take over some of these social media platforms, including Twitter, in the last period of time and it’s really led to a poisoning of public discourse.”
Ms Doherty also said there was not enough regulation in the space and added: “Our young people need to be protected, our women need to be protected, our LGBTQI community, there’s a whole range of life that needs to be protected, and we’re not moving fast enough.”
The candidates, who took questions from representatives of youth charities, also discussed areas of concern for young people including hate speech, the far-right and misinformation.
Sinn Fein senator Lynn Boylan, also running to become an MEP, said there needed to be a “twin approach” to targeting misinformation which involved regulation but also engaging with communities on the ground.
She added: “You’re not going to win the fight on social media because of the bots, its like whack-a-mole.”
Mr O Riordain said he was “very worried about where the country is going” and accused some other Irish political parties of turning “to the right”.
He said there was a need for legislation on hate crime and hate speech to drive culture change.
Ms Gibney, who was the chief commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission as well as a former corporate social responsibility lead for Google, also said there was a need for hate crime legislation in Ireland.
Ms Daly said it would “absolutely be the case” that the MEP election will return more far-right candidates.
People-Before-Profit TD Brid Smith, also running to be an MEP for Dublin, said the far-right was organised on an international level and had “poisoned a whole generation”.
On the EU’s Digital Services Act, Mr Cuffe said the legislation dealing with misinformation and illegal content is a “a step in the right direction”.
He added: “When you have a law that’s passed and Elon Musk is angry about it, it probably means you’re doing the right thing.”
However, Ms Gibney said Mr Musk was “not angry enough”, adding that the legislation was “weak”.
