Irish internet providers have said that a move by their counterparts in the UK to make it harder for children to 
access internet porn is akin to “censorship”.
Their stance has been condemned by politicians and campaigners as “scandalous” and “hypocritical”.
The UK scheme, introduced last year after recommendations by a Government-backed report, means that when a parent sets up on the internet they have to indicate that they want to be able to access porn sites. In Ireland, you do the opposite, that is you have to indicate that you do not want to be able to access porn sites.
The Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI) has dismissed the UK approach as “censorship”, saying the responsibility should lie with parents to regulate what children access on the web. Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, refused to say whether the Government was planning to move towards the UK approach.
However the ISPAI stance was attacked by two Senators, Jillian van Turnhout and Ronan Mullen [1], who accused the internet providers of hypocrisy over their stance.
Senator van Turnhout, a children’s rights campaigner said the response of Irish internet providers to the move by their UK counterparts was “a great shame”.
She said: “The Internet service providers of Ireland are more than willing to block access to sites that infringe copyright, but they consider it to be nothing less than censorship to try to prevent a child from accessing potentially harmful material.
“They took a similar view when they were asked to block child abuse material. This is already being done in many European countries, including Norway, Sweden and Italy.
She noted that the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children had estimated that 20pc of all pornography on the Internet depicts the abuse and exploitation of children.
“However, Irish Internet providers are more concerned with preventing people from downloading songs and other things from the entertainment industry than with blocking terrible images of children being abused,” Senator van Turnhout added.
Senator Ronan Mullen said the decision of the Irish providers to criticise the action of their UK counterparts seemed quite scandalous.
He said that the willingness of internet providers “to see access blocked when it comes to infringement of copyright, yet they do not seem to have a sense of the wider public interest and the protection of the most vulnerable children in society” was hypocritical.
He added that the unwillingness of the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, to even comment on whether there were plans to persuade Irish providers to adopt the British model was disappointing.
“Why do we lack courage when it comes to trying to shape the media and the internet environment so as to protect children from accessing unacceptable material,” he asked. He expressed the hope that the Government would take a more courageous approach.
Speaking on Monday at the launch of Safer Internet Day 2012 at St Brigid’s Primary School in Dublin, Ms Fitzgerald admitted that the UK was “further ahead” in terms of protecting children from inappropriate online material, but she refused to comment on whether there were any plans to persuade Irish internet providers to adopt the British model.
The event aims to promote safer internet use for children, and marked a new Garda Primary Schools Programme module dealing with online bullying.