Fears over children being exposed to pornography on the Internet are exaggerated, writes Karlin Lillington
If you didn't know better, you might have been led to believe last week that the Republic is a nation of paedophiles running appalling child pornography websites.
In this repulsive online world, it was implied, Irish kids as young as 10 stumble upon pornography on a regular, even daily, basis.
This vision - utterly untrue, but a terrifying prospect for anyone who cares about children, and for parents already unsure about the Internet and its uses - was served up by Mary Hanafin, the Minister of State for Health and Children.
At a launch of the two-year-old Child Pornography Hotline's report , she very deliberately chose to highlight - or rather, to sensationalise - one aspect of it.
As she headlined her own press release: "A complaint a day about child pornography on the net." Well, that was guaranteed to get her press coverage, and it did.
"The 671 reports of child pornography on the Internet to the hotline proves the need for parents to be vigilant about children's use of the Internet.
"About one third of 10-year-olds are Internet users and are exposed to positive and negative aspects," she said.
She added that a fourth of parents say they feel "helpless" to supervise their children's use on the Internet, and suggested that even very young children are coming across child pornography regularly.
What the Minister didn't clarify - and should have - is that the number of those complaints that ultimately were shown to have any connection to child pornography was a much, much smaller 23 in 2000, and 16 in 2001. Of those, nearly all related to US-based sites, 19 in 2000, and 14 in 2001. Only two cases in two years were referred to gardaí here.
Moreover, of those 671 complaints, about half - 322 - never checked out at all.
That means the Republic actually has an extremely low incidence of citizens encountering truly offensive material. The figures also imply a very low presence of this illegal material online within the State itself, and suggest children would be extremely unlikely ever to encounter such material online.
All of this crucial detail is clearly stated in the breakdown of complaints in the report, had Minister Hanafin chosen to read it properly.
Furthermore, almost all reports into the hotline are made by adults who feel concerned about material they have seen, not, as implied by the Minister, by children.
The impression I have received from people within the Irish Internet industry who are involved with the hotline project is that, in direct contrast to the Minister, they felt this initial report showed very positive trends.
Far from being a dangerous place for children, the Internet seems instead to be a place that, by and large, offers a rewarding and non-threatening experience for kids. Of course - and as the report strongly suggests - parents should familiarise themselves with the Internet, establish family guidelines for its use, and supervise young children in particular.
But inexplicably, the Minister chose a terribly damaging, deliberately worrying way of portraying the Internet at a time when the State is acknowledged by international surveys to be a second-tier information age society.
For example, 2001 rankings by analysts IDC place the Republic at 20th. Our European neighbours Sweden, Norway and Finland top the list at 1, 2 and 3; with Denmark, the UK and Switzerland at 5, 6 and 7; the Netherlands at 10, Germany at 13, and Belgium at 17.
We don't use the Internet as much as most of Europe; and we continue to have a low number of PCs at home and in schools. Yet our economic and social health is increasingly related to such statistics.
For example, companies consider such factors when they choose global locations in which to make investments and create jobs.
A growing number of policies across Government - from the Information Society Commission to the Department of Education - are trying to address our deficiencies in getting Irish children up to speed on the net.
It is a shame, then, that Ms Hanafin's misleading comments will only serve to frighten parents from opening the wonderful doors of the Internet to their children.
The hotline report may be accessed at: https://www.hotline.ie/news/hotline_first_report.pdf