An act of courage that will prove a crucial milestone in the battle to protect our children

DR Mary Aiken and Professor Barry O’Sullivan have absolutely nothing to gain from Ireland’s digital age of consent being put at 16. Both are internationally renowned for their work on and around the internet.

And neither Prof. O’Sullivan nor Dr Aiken, the world’s leading cyber-psychologist, is trying to secure funding from governments or universities: they don’t need to raise their profile or make a name for themselves – Dr Aiken already has a US TV show based on her, after all.

If anything, for them to get involved in the battle to protect Irish children online was a risk.

The world of academia generally doesn’t like its leading lights getting involved in political battles: they prefer their intellectuals to stay remote and keep aloof.

Besides, Dr Aiken and Prof. O’Sullivan operate on the global stage: for them to devote hours, weeks and months on what was happening in Ireland was akin to Cristiano Ronaldo giving up Real Madrid in order to help Shamrock Rovers win the FAI Cup.

And worst of all, getting involved in this debate meant that Dr Aiken and Prof. O’Sullivan were attacked, harangued and – in some instances – smeared by people on the other side.

Often, critics with little or no educational pedigree of their own questioned the credentials of two of this country’s most eminent academics in order to advance their own agenda.

And yet despite having nothing personally to gain and everything to lose, these two brave academics fought.

They fought for no reason other than the fact that they knew, through their unquestionable expertise, the dangers facing children online.

They knew it was fundamentally wrong to think that a child of 13 could possibly understand the full implications of handing over their data to a billionaire tech firm.

They know just how rapacious and dangerous social media companies can be. In short, they knew that our children needed to be protected.

THEY were supported in their efforts by this newspaper, which has been campaigning for more than a year now for a suite of measures to protect our children online.

Again, this campaign is based on nothing other than an understanding – informed by seeing the reality of what is happening to children online every day – that the internet can be a dangerous and damaging place for anyone... but particularly for children, who are the most vulnerable people in any society.

As it turns out, our campaign was also supported by the people who are at the coalface of dealing with children every day: the gardaí (who have to deal with the explosion of sexual grooming and child pornography engendered by social media); teachers (who have to try and deal with the daily fallout of online bullying on social media); doctors (who have to deal with the potential physical consequences, from lack of sleep or obesity to anxiety, depression and suicidal feelings of social media). And the campaign was also overwhelmingly supported by the people who should matter most in this debate: parents. In every possible way, the parents of Ireland made it clear that they wanted the maximum possible protection for their children online – not for the defences to be stripped to their legal minimum.

Astonishingly, however, the voices of the people who know most were completely ignored.

Rather than welcoming the arrival of experts like Dr Aiken and Prof. O’Sullivan to the debate, any dissenting voices were ignored, impugned or undermined.

Parents were never given a meaningful voice. Submissions from the Garda, from the Royal College of Physicians Ireland and from major teaching unions were simply ignored.

Instead, a coalition of lobbying groups – the majority wholly or in part funded by the Government – were allowed to dominate the discussion.

Even though their arguments ranged from the flawed to the specious to the downright bizarre; even though they did not speak for the majority of those closest to the issue; even though some of them were entirely ignorant of the latest academic research into children and the internet; despite all this, they held sway. A Government which seemed petrified of offending the tech giants closed its ears to expertise and closed its eyes to the evidence, preferring instead to rely on the skewed opinions of a well-funded lobbying coalition.

Worse still, when their notions were questioned, these organisations mounted a slick, highly orchestrated media campaign to try and deride their critics.

Illogical arguments were buttressed with the knowing sneer of the establishment when it is trying to defend a case without having the facts on its side.

And yet despite this meticulously-planned series of attacks, the doughty campaigners for child safety carried on: and ultimately, their efforts were rewarded.

They were rewarded because enough of our TDS were prepared to think for themselves about matters of supreme importance. In an era of cynicism about politics, it is heartening to see that the majority of our Dáil deputies are prepared to think for themselves.

They are smart enough to see that lowering the age of consent for anything – be it sex, cosmetic surgery or signing up to social media – will not protect children.

They were able to see through the bizarre notion that children who are not old enough to sign a contract, leave school, drive a car or vote are nonetheless somehow old enough to enter into a deal with a rapacious tech firm.

WHILE every one of the 56 TDs who voted to raise the digital age of consent to 16 deserves the public’s gratitude, there are a few who deserve particular mention: Labour’s Seán Sherlock, who has been steadfast in recognising that children must be protected online; Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin, who also recognised the need to defend children and took the courageous decision to bring his party with him, nobly aided by Thomas Byrne and Jim O’Callaghan, Senator Michael McDowell and numerous independents, including Mattie McGrath.

And while Sinn Féin, led by justice spokesman Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, voiced some reservations, the party voted in favour of child protection when the crunch came.

These legislators refused to be cowed by the sneer campaign of the tech apologists and listened instead to the facts – and to common sense.

Obviously, yesterday’s vote will not on its own protect our children online. Many of the dangers posed to our most vulnerable citizens will not be solved just by this measure alone: there is much more we have to do before we arrive in a world where our children are tech-savvy but are also protected from the myriad harms that the internet and smartphones pose to them. But it is a good start.

One day, society will look back with horror at the way we have to date allowed our children to be sacrificed to tech companies, just as we look back now with horror at the Madgdalene Laundries, the industrial schools and the mass grave of babies in Tuam.

Future generations will wonder how today’s adults allowed their children to be damaged and endangered without anyone daring to shout ‘Stop!’

After all, we only need to look at Professor Jean Twenge’s seminal US research to see the horrific effects this digital takeover of our children is having on their minds and their bodies.

Thankfully, however, the tide may now be turning. Thanks to 56 brave legislators, and in particular to two heroic academics, the first foundation stone of a true digital child protection policy has now been laid. All those involved should be extremely proud.

Yesterday’s vote is not the end of the battle to keep our children safe online; it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, we can but hope, the end of the beginning.