Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil uafás léirithe ag muintir na hUaimhe agus léirithe ag daoine ar fud na tíre faoin ionsaí ar an mbuachaill a bhí 14 bliain d’aois agus é ag siúl abhaile ón scoil ar an Uaimh inné. Tá ár smaointe leis an ngasúr agus leis an teaghlach ag an phointe seo. Níl áit ar bith inár sochaí don chineál ionsaithe seo agus don bhulaíocht den tsórt atá feicthe againn. As a parent of four boys, I, along with everybody else, was utterly disgusted and sickened to the core to see and hear about the unprovoked attack on a young child of 14 years of age as he was walking home from his school in Navan. We can only send out our thoughts and our love to that child at this point in time and hope he makes a recovery, as well as our thoughts and our love to the family as they deal with this trauma. I know that the people of Navan, and indeed people right across the country, are shocked and horrified by this incident. I know the Tánaiste will join with me in condemning this attack and, indeed, the individuals involved.

The young person involved has suffered serious physical injuries and, no doubt, psychological injuries as well. It is every parent's worst nightmare that he or she would see his or her child bullied. It is every parent's worst nightmare that this type of incident or attack would happen, and for his or her child to be physically assaulted. For so many parents, it is just unimaginable. For that matter, it is unimaginable for many parents for their children to be involved in the perpetration of this type of assault. There is no room in our society for this type of behaviour, violence or bullying. I am aware that the Garda is currently undertaking an investigation. My colleague who represents Meath West, Deputy Guirke, has called on anybody with any information to bring that forward to the Garda in order that this issue can be investigated properly and the perpetrators dealt with. I echo his call today.

It is also clear that there is a role for parents and school communities across the island to educate our young people to ensure that incidents like this never happen again and to ensure that our children are protected from all forms of bullying and violence. I urge people to heed the advice of the Garda and not to reshare this video online any further. I believe that the majority of people who have shared the content have done so not out of any malicious intent, but to express their revulsion at the heinous attack on an innocent and defenceless young child. However, we know the sharing of such content can have devastating consequences and impact on the victim, who has already suffered enough. Was it not the intent of those who took the video to actually do that? There is a disturbing rise in young people orchestrating these attacks and filming them for public online consumption. Many have warned that this is leading to a rise in violence on our streets and, indeed, in our communities. It is clear that social media companies are not doing enough to root out this violent content from their platforms. That was very clear over the last 24 hours. Is it not the case that social media companies have a responsibility to ensure that this type of content is speedily removed from their platforms?

At the start of this year, the Government appointed the State's first Online Safety Commissioner. The commissioner's role is to regulate online content to make our children safer online. The shocking incident in Navan is surely an example of the type of content that should be removed from social media platforms. If you take a cursory glance at the website this morning, it shows that the office of the commissioner has not yet devised any online codes, nor can it deal with individual complaints relating to online safety. I appreciate that the commissioner is new in the post, but I ask the Tánaiste, on behalf of everybody here who is very worried that it could be their son or daughter next, when will the office be up and running, and when will it be able to remove online content of this nature immediately?

First, I must say that the country has been sickened and disturbed by the shocking attack on this young boy; the random violent nature of it, the videoing of it and the posting of the video online. I have not seen the video but some who did have described it as stomach-churning and quite shocking. I agree with the Deputy that there is absolutely no place in our society for such violence. More broadly, there has been increased violence against our LGBTI community, which is quite disturbing. I believe collectively, in this House and across the country, we condemn what has happened. We have to ensure that our response is multifaceted and multidisciplinary and by that I mean both within the general culture within society and, as the Deputy has said, from a parental point of view and a home-based point of view, we need to rededicate ourselves to eliminating such violence and such a culture of intimidation, bullying and violence from our society. That is constant work that we have to work on every day in every setting, including in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

There has to be a child-based response. The passing, by this House, of the hate crime Bill is one such step. From the justice perspective, some very significant work has been undertaken by the Garda over the years and more recently in terms of the youth diversion programme, and in working with young people who get involved in unacceptable behaviour and activities with a view to trying to prevent them from going down the wrong path in a significant way. There are a number of ways we have to approach this. Within education itself, the Cineáltas programme, which was launched in December 2022, is an action plan on bullying. That followed extensive consultation with the school community at large, including all members, parents, teachers and students. It is founded on a rights-based approach, rooted in four key principles, namely, prevention, support, oversight and community. It provides a very clear roadmap for the entire education community in terms of working together to prevent violent incidents such as this and bullying as a phenomenon within our society, community and schools. I think we have to focus on implementing such well-resourced strategies on a consistent basis to deal with these kind of issues. Many communities and schools are doing that, but it is quite shocking what has transpired here. That gives us an insight that notwithstanding all of the programmes, good behaviour and mentoring that is taking place in different contexts, including in youth clubs, schools and sporting clubs, this type of horrific incident still occurs.

In respect of the office of the Online Safety Commissioner, progress has been made on that. I do not have an exact timeline or date here for the Deputy today. It will have very important work to do to prevent the online violence and bullying that has become a phenomenon as well, as part and parcel of the social media world. I will endeavour to be balanced here. The companies concerned have obligations and work to remove harmful material from many of their platforms, but there has to be a faster and more rapid response to posting of such videos to have them removed.

Our thoughts today are with that young boy and with his parents and family. The well-being of all our children and young people must be uppermost in our minds. We send our support and solidarity to him and his family from this House today.

I welcome the Tánaiste's words. I agree with him that much work has been done by school communities and different organisations through different programmes and that many of our schools are far more inclusive. However, that sickening attack many of us saw or heard about in Navan is a reminder to all of us that there is far more work still to be done. That trend that is happening, which we see not only on our island but on our neighbouring island, of orchestrated attacks for social media content is very real.

Many of these social media operators are headquartered here. If I was the parent of that young child, I do not know how I would be able to deal with not being able to go on social media without seeing my son being attacked in that vicious way. It is not acceptable that these companies are allowing that content still to be on that platform today.

I ask the Tánaiste to send a clear message to the social media operators that are headquartered in this State that they should be removing that content. They should not have to wait for our online commission to get up and running with the codes. They should do the decent thing to make sure, as we all need to do much more, our children are protected from further trauma in the aftermath of an attack like this.

First, of course, it should not have to wait for the online commission, nor does it have to wait. The companies themselves should remove such videos immediately once they go up and that should be the position. We have given that message to the social media platforms on a consistent basis. Indeed, they argue that they do that but the rapidity by which they do it at times has to be questioned. The impact that can have on the individuals concerned who are the focus or the young person who has been attacked can compound the damage done to that young person and have subsequent psychological impacts. We hope that full resources will be made available to the family to enable that young person to recover from this attack. There is no argument with the Deputy's basic point, however. Such violent incidents should not be left on social media platforms for one minute longer.