Senator Rónán Mullen’s Protection of Children (Online Age Verification) Bill passed second stage in the Seanad yesterday and will move to committee stage on Monday.

The bill would place an obligation on website controllers and app store services to carry out age verification to ensure that persons under 18 shall not be able to access pornographic material online.

However, media minister Catherine Martin told the Seanad that there are a “number of significant legal and technical issues” with the bill, including its failure to set out a role for Coimisiún na Meán.

Mrs Martin added: “We have online safety legislation that applies across the EU, enforced by the European Commission and independent regulators in each member state. This means that Ireland cannot act unilaterally, nor should it.

“For example, I understand France sought to implement its own national legislation on age verification and age assurance and the European Commission has notified France that such laws would be contrary to the DSA.

“It is my view that by participating in a unified and coherent EU approach, as Ireland is doing, and working with the European Commission, we will bring all the platforms, including those named platforms, to account and we will achieve the aim of protecting our children from age-inappropriate content.”

She said the bill also has “potential legal conflicts with the country-of-origin principle” by seeking to impose obligations on online services not headquartered in Ireland.

“Recent decisions by the Court of Justice of the European Union on similar issues have been in line with this principle, and the European Commission would likely strongly object to any effort to breach it,” she said.

In a statement after the debate, Senator Mullen said: “If EU bureaucracy becomes the enemy of child protection, that will give people a reason to be sceptical of the EU.”

The bill is co-sponsored by fellow independent senators Michael McDowell, Sharon Keogan and Gerard Craughwell, and Fianna Fáil senators Erin McGreehan, Diarmuid Wilson and Aidan Davitt.