I was at a presentation by Haven Horizons yesterday in the audiovisual room, as were others. This domestic, sexual and gender-based violence prevention centre does wonderful work - without proper State funding, I might add, something that needs to be looked at. At the discussion afterwards, an issue I was mulling over came up, and that was the contribution that social media make to such violent and coercive activity, where young boys especially are given unfiltered access to the most misogynistic material, where Andrew Tate and the self-proclaimed Irish patriarchal patriot Andrew Tayto and other pathetic excuses for real men become, through algorithms designed to entice and excite, the substitute male role models for an online generation. It is not just about boys; all our children are being sent the wrong messages about how to treat one another. They all want to be on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Discord and other platforms and there is huge social media pressure - call it FOMO if you will - to be included with one's peers in the online world.

Social media are having a profound impact on the mental health of young people in Ireland, linked to an increase in anxiety and depression as our young people try to compare themselves with others. There is this unrealistic lifestyle perpetuated by celebrities and influencers which can affect the most impressionable in a very bad way. We have always been challenged by bullying behaviour in the real world, but it has been magnified by social media platforms where individuals can anonymously harass and intimidate the target or sometimes do it as part of a group pile-on, where someone is bullied or excluded, including, unfortunately, so many incidences where young people - and I have recent examples in my constituency - have been told bluntly to harm or even kill themselves. We have had sometimes tragic results in this country. We complain about how lack of regulation has turned social media into a cesspit for adults, but for children it is worse. We have vulnerable developing minds, in some ways, yes, more clued in than older generations to scams and spam, but at the same time less discerning as to how they access news content, what they share with their peers and what they learn from inappropriate access to adult content without any context or filters.

Calls for regulation have not worked so we need to move to the next level. At this point, as a legislator, I believe we should seriously explore what they are doing in Australia, a liberal country, where the world's strictest laws on social media have been enacted for under-16s, to come into being 12 months from now. They have to look at different ways of doing it. Is it not time we looked at doing something similar? It is not a panacea and there are drawbacks, but our children must come first, not the super-rich tech barons currently prostrating themselves before the Trump Administration.

Deputy Gogarty is right in pretty much every word he said. This is an area that requires a lot more action and, as we have said before, and we mean it by our actions at both an EU and a domestic level, the era of self-regulation is over. We were talking about trade and tariffs a few moments ago; let us talk about another thing - values. Our values in this country and our values as Europeans matter too. Regulating social media companies - companies that can do good - is really important. Getting this right is really important, as is not being browbeaten by anybody in any part of the world in terms of having a regulatory structure in place that protects our democracies, protects our people, crucially, and, most importantly, protects our children and our vulnerable citizens.

We are not where we need to be in this regard. Being a parent today is even more complex and challenging a job than it has been in the past. It always has been, no doubt, but that idea of your child having nearly a better knowledge of technology than you have and you running to try to keep up with them is a source of huge concern for parents right across the country.

The Deputy is right that we need to look at what other countries are doing. My colleague, the Minister, Patrick O'Donovan, beside me has asked his officials to do exactly what the Deputy suggests, to look at what other countries like Australia are doing. Australia deserve great credit for the steps they are considering. I have been looking into this recently. They have given themselves a bit of a lead-in period because they are working on how you practically implement some of the measures they would like to implement around age verification.

What is very clear is that we have a digital age of consent in Ireland and it is 16 and, in my view, there are what amount to workarounds that have been found that mean that while we say there is a digital age of consent of 16, there are so many kids now on social media well before that. CyberSafeKids alarmingly reveals that 84% of under-12s have their own social media accounts or instant messaging accounts, despite the minimum age restriction being 13 on the most popular apps, and around 93% of eight-to-12-year-olds have their own smart device. This is a ticking timebomb. We need to get serious in terms of empowering and supporting parents. We need to tackle that FOMO of "I must do it because somebody else of my age also has a smartphone or is on social media". Now, with the existence of Coimisiún na Meán, and with, as the Deputy said, the experiences from other countries, this is an area that we should act on. Very serious consideration should be given to the idea of having to be 16 before you are on social media and aligning that with the digital age of consent in Ireland, which is also 16. We should work constructively across parties, perhaps through the new committee structures and the likes that will exist in this House, to really scrutinise this, to learn from other jurisdictions and to use the resources we now have through the European legislative infrastructure to take steps that will support our children.

In early 2023, the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said that parents know best when it comes to banning youngsters from social media or imposing phone restrictions. That was in response to touted legislation in the UK that was less stringent than the Australian model being touted. However, teachers, who see the impact first hand in the classrooms, will beg to differ. The Tánaiste, the original TikTok Taois, as he has been called, said last year as well as today that the era of social media giants regulating themselves is over, so I understand how seriously he takes this, but let us regulate them. If we cannot protect our children adequately, we have to make sure they live safer lives by banning use. If you start at 16, it might help the 12- or 13-year-olds. Maybe a citizens' convention on this issue could be held. There are risks, of course, that some will go to the dark web or use VPNs to circumvent restrictions if what we do is not sufficient, but we need to show leadership rather than hide behind laborious EU initiatives. We brought in the smoking ban; why can we not get moving on a ban on social media as well?

Deputy Gogarty is not doing this, but sometimes we can blame the European Union. The European Union has given us pretty decent legislative infrastructure here. It is now up to member states, including Ireland, to decide how we wish to utilise that. The era of self-regulation is over beyond my just saying it in the sense that there are now codes in place and there is now an ability to fine companies that do not comply with the codes. I am genuinely concerned about the age verification piece. Of course, we must empower and entrust parents. Parents raising their children is something we all agree with, but we also know as parents that you can support parents through your laws. In my hometown of Greystones we brought in a voluntary smartphone ban in primary schools. Parents were delighted because you did not have to start having the conversation with the son or daughter about everybody else in the class having a smartphone. It provided cover and support for all parents to say, "No, in this town we do not do smartphones in primary schools." That is now being rolled out to many other things. Getting that same culture in terms of the age at which people use social media is an interesting step. The Deputy proposed some very interesting ideas, I am happy that the Minister with responsibility here has heard them, and let us continue to engage on this.