Parents are trying to protect their children from an online world and becoming increasingly overwhelmed and anxious about it because their children are carrying around in their pockets probably the biggest threat they will face for many years, and that is just their phones. The Netflix show "Adolescence" brought this danger into stark relief. It showed an extreme case of the tragic consequences of toxic online content. For parents, what the show demonstrated perfectly was the helplessness they often feel. I do not know if the Minister watched "Adolescence" but it was a very tough show to watch, as a parent.

We think our children are safe when they are at home with us but the reality is we often have no idea what they are looking at online. Parents are doing their best and so are schools. In my constituency in Wicklow, the It Takes a Village initiative was a huge success. As part of that, all eight local primary schools introduced a voluntary no smartphone code. Under the scheme, parents signed up to not giving their children a smartphone until they went to secondary school. I know other schools around the country are doing similar. Mobile phone bans in both primary and secondary schools are now pretty widespread. I do not know of any school that is not throwing everything at this problem because schools know how serious it is. The difficulty is that toxic content is still there when children go outside the school gate and turn their phones on. That is where we need to protect them.

One study has found it took just two minutes from setting up an account for teenage boys to be fed harmful content. The content was misogynistic, violent, extremist and racist. Within two hours and 32 minutes of setting up that account, nearly 80% of the content being recommended was harmful. The dangerous content is endless and relentless and is being deliberately funnelled into children's accounts on a doom loop. Social media companies are making billions from feeding our children this toxic material and we as legislators are standing by and allowing it to happen.

A new report from the Children's Rights Alliance has warned about a lack of regulation online. I want to deal with one aspect of that report, namely, the lack of regulation of recommender algorithms. These are the algorithms that continually feed this toxic material to children in this dangerous online bubble. There is no escape from this endless scrolling of harmful and toxic content. Initially, Coimisiún na Meán had included measures to address these poisonous algorithms in the online safety code. This was really welcomed at the time but for some reason those proposals were removed. According to the Children's Rights Alliance, this was a big mistake and their removal reduces safety for children online. Does the Minister agree that these algorithms should be turned off? Does she think it was a mistake for Coimisiún na Meán to remove this regulation from the online safety code?

I thank the Deputy.

Will she work with us across the floor to change this and make sure online spaces are safer for our children?

Similar to the previous question, the priority for all of us here, and this Government, is to make sure children are safe, be it online or offline or in their homes, bedrooms, communities and schools. It is an absolute priority to make sure children are protected. The world we live in is changing and for young people the world of online, social media and technology is part and parcel of their world in a way it was not for so many of us when we were young. We know the benefits that brings to their lives, our lives, our work and the way we communicate but we can all clearly see, as the Deputy just outlined, the pitfalls, challenges and dangers young people are facing online.

There is much we need to do. The Deputy mentioned Coimisiún na Meán. We are the first country in Europe to establish an online safety commission and the sole focus of the commissioner is to make sure we remove harmful and illegal content. Where companies do not comply, there is a very hefty fine at the end of the day. The fine can be up to 10% of turnover or up to €20 million if content is not taken down or if the company does not comply with the codes of conduct and its own rules. It is important that the online safety commissioner establishes that this code is applied and companies know it will be used.

As Minister for Justice, my priority was making sure our laws were tough. Coco's Law, the first law I introduced, made it illegal to share harmful content online. Unfortunately, where personal content is being shared, we are seeing that the harm this causes young people is insurmountable. I am pleased to say that is something young people are now aware of. We need to make sure the law actually changes behaviour, not that we are penalising young people.

The Deputy touched on the issue of violent pornography. We see more and more of it and access to it is so readily available for young people. The knock-on implications when it comes to domestic and sexual violence are horrific and we see this at a much younger age. That is why we need to make sure that in everything we do, we are talking to young people and engaging with them.

I watched "Adolescence" and while there were certain elements of every single episode that made all of us stop and think, one of the things that stood out to me the most was the second episode when the police officer was speaking to his son in the school and the son said that he did not get it, this is what they were saying to each other, this is what it means. We need to talk to young people. We need to understand how they are communicating with each other. We need to teach them how to deal with certain types of content and engagement. I agree, insofar as possible, that we need to protect young people from it as well.

I fully support the smartphone ban in primary schools. It is absolutely necessary. I do not think any child before secondary school age should have access to social media. There is a role for all of us parents in making sure that when a child leaves school and comes home they are not on social media at night, that they are not in their bedroom able to access who knows what and that there are controls on any apps they are using. We also need to make sure that in our schools and through our education systems we are providing support and engaging with young people. In that regard, a lot of programmes are already being rolled out through Webwise and the Department of Education.

I agree there is a role for everybody in this. Parents are playing their part. Schools are playing their part. I know incredible teachers who are doing everything they can to address this issue. We need the Government to play its part.

I acknowledge the work the Minister did on Coco's Law. She spoke about making sure it is illegal to share graphic or toxic content. We are allowing the social media companies not only to share that content but also to promote it. Not only are they promoting it, they are making billions from feeding this to our children and creating this really toxic environment in which our children are growing up. No matter what we do as parents or what the schools do, if children are continually seeing this content for hours every day, it will seep into them. We need to stop this at the social media level.

We need to make sure that the content providers are held accountable for it and they need to turn off the algorithm. Does the Minister agree that those algorithms need to be switched off?

From the Government's perspective, our view, my view and the view of the Minister for communications is that the era of self-regulation is over and it has to be over. The Online Safety Commissioner needs to ensure - I know that she will - that our strategies and the commission's strategies focus on what is actually happening here and that includes algorithms. I fully agree with the Deputy that these need to be dealt with. The impact that the rabbit hole, or the doomscrolling as I have heard it referred to recently, is having is not just on young people's concentration and their ability to focus; where it is leading them and where it is taking them is absolutely detrimental. I fully agree with the Deputy. I know that the Minister for communications will meet with all the social media companies in the weeks ahead.

It is obviously closely engaged with the Online Safety Commissioner. I, myself, have spoken to her. I will certainly be making sure that our engagement through education is absolutely front and centre of the work I do. However, we need to make sure that we are dealing with every element, including how we support parents to deal with this at home, how our schools and teachers make sure that the programmes we are rolling out are helpful for children and how we make sure that at the end of the day the social media companies that are not engaging, not taking down content and not sticking to the codes of conduct are either fined or that there are even greater repercussions.