Apologies have been received from Senators Bradley, Cosgrove and Keogan.

Before I begin, I must read into the public record that the joint committee at a number of previous private meetings agreed all the minutes of public and private meetings between 3 July and 18 December.

The agenda item for consideration is a resumed discussion on technology, social media and children with a particular focus on the safety and wellbeing of children. We have had a number of meetings on this topic. We are joined by Ms Suzanne Connolly, chief executive and Ms Niamh McLoughlin, programme co-ordinator, online safety programme, Barnardos; Dr. Sarah Cassidy, president, and Mr. Mark Smyth senior clinical psychologist, Psychological Society of Ireland; and Mr. Mick Moran, CEO, Irish Internet Hotline and Ms Catherine Cross, deputy CEO of the National Parents Council, both representing the Irish Safer Internet Centre. Members will recall we had the ISPCC and Webwise before us last week who are also members of the Irish Safer Internet Centre. They are very welcome. From the Observatory on Cyberbullying, Cyberhate and Online Harassment at the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre we are joined by Professor James O’Higgins Norman, director and Dr. Darragh McCashin, chair and from the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, University of Galway we are joined by Professor John Canavan, director, and Dr. Bernardine Brady, associate director. Everyone is very welcome to the discussion.

Before we proceed I have a few housekeeping matters to go through. I would like to advise everyone the chat function in MS Teams should only be used to make the team on-site aware of any technical issues or urgent matters that may arise and should not be used to make general comments or statements during the meeting. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard I ask any member participating via MS Teams that prior to making their contribution to the meeting that they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

In advance of inviting the witnesses to deliver their opening statements, I advise them of the following in relation to parliamentary privilege: they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentation they make today to the committee. This means that they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, witnesses are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, witnesses will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Witnesses will be allocated three minutes' speaking time to deliver their opening statements, and this will be followed by a question-and-answer session with members. I will call on the witnesses in the following order: Ms Suzanne Connolly, Dr. Sarah Cassidy, Ms Catherine Cross, Professor James O’Higgins Norman and finally Professor John Canavan.

I thank the committee for inviting Barnardos here today to share our experience on this important topic. I am joined by my colleague Niamh Mcloughlin, our online safety programme co-ordinator.

Barnardos works with children and families across Ireland, providing services in over 50 service locations. In 202,4 we worked with more than 35,000 children and their families. We hope the insights we share today support the committee’s work to shape a digital environment where children’s well-being and their best interests are our shared priority across society.

In 2014, we started our online safety programme, which has been supported by Google.org since 2019. It delivers practical workshops within schools that empower children and young people to navigate online life safely, while also providing guidance and training to parents, carers and professionals. To date, this programme has reached over 100,000 children in more than 1,000 schools and worked with over 4,000 parents.

Through this programme we are kept up to date with children’s current online experiences, the benefits they experience alongside their concerns. In the period 2019 to 2024 we worked with children within the age range eight to 12 and since 2024 we have broadened the age range to 15. We also remain strongly connected to the pressing worries parents in Ireland have about keeping their children safe online.

Barnardos has researched specific issues raised by children in relation to online safety, including cyberbullying, online gaming and artificial intelligence, AI. Children tell us they enjoy being online. They talk about the many benefits it brings such as creativity, connection, fun and learning, and their parents recognise the positive aspects of digital life. However, alongside these positives, children discuss experiencing real and significant harms.

Our report on cyberbullying found that 53% of children aged between eight and 12 had been cyberbullied themselves, 62% had seen others being targeted and 60% of children said they would not tell their parents if cyberbullying occurred. Our online gaming report found that stranger contact is common, with almost 65% of children contacted by a stranger in an online game.

Children tell us they want more help distinguishing what is real and what is fake online and they want additional support for their well-being online. Parents tell us they want to support their children to have safe and positive online experiences but they do not know how to do that and can feel overwhelmed. In a recent survey, only 29% of parents told us they feel confident in keeping their children safe online. Barnardos is increasingly concerned about how AI algorithms and recommender systems shape children’s lives, pushing content children have not chosen. This can encourage passive consumption and lead them towards more negative and extreme material. Some 93% of parents we surveyed said they have concerns about their children using AI. Parents cannot be expected to keep pace with dangers that children potentially face online. It underlines why safety by design rather than reactive measures after harm has occurred must become the norm. International research tells us that children who experience vulnerabilities offline are more likely to be harmed online and require more specialised measures and interventions to keep them safe. This reinforces our particular concern for the children and families already facing significant challenges and vulnerabilities. Online safety is just one of the many pressures they face. It is not an issue they can manage alone. Children’s best interests must guide all decisions and policies affecting their online lives. We believe the Government should prioritise the following actions. Number one, make safety by design a legal and enforceable standard. This would ensure platforms create spaces for children that are safe by default through safer algorithms, effective reporting systems and protections against grooming and harmful content. Number two, strengthen oversight of emerging harms. From harmful algorithms to AI-generated abuse, risks are evolving rapidly. Government and regulators must continue to lead in anticipating, monitoring and addressing these harms. Number three, ensure the continued provision of a range of nationwide practical supports for parents and schools both online and in person. They need to be in relation to online safety and well-being, digital literacy and AI.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it today. I am speaking in my capacity as president of the Psychological Society of Ireland, the learned and professional body for psychology and psychologists in the Republic of Ireland. I will discuss the impact of the digital world on children because technology is now embedded in our daily lives, providing many opportunities and benefits as well as an array of negative impacts and risks. Evidence-based research from the biopsychosocial perspective consistently shows that the average effects of screen use and social media on mental health are small. However, these averages conceal substantial individual differences. Children with existing vulnerabilities or those exposed to harmful online experiences are much more clearly affected. Focusing solely on the amount of time children spend on screens is overly reductive. Time is a blunt measure and a poor predictor of outcomes. Context matters - type of use, time of day and a child’s developmental stage are far more important. Across countries and age groups, evidence consistently shows that increased screen usage particularly during evenings and at night time impacts quality and duration of sleep. Sleep disruption plays a key role in difficulties with mood, attention, emotional regulation and learning. Cyberbullying and online harassment pose significant risks and are strongly linked to anxiety and depression much more so than simply overall screen time, with harms concentrated among specific cohorts of children. The scientific evidence also shows that well-moderated, safe online spaces can confer some benefits particularly for isolated, marginalised young people, neurodivergent youth and those experiencing mental health difficulties. There may be unintended consequences of overly rigid, automated blanket approaches to online safety. Such approaches may inadvertently push vulnerable young people towards less visible and less regulated online spaces. The primary responsibility for protecting children from harm by digital devices must lie the creators of these technologies. Tech companies must be responsible for managing risk and for harm caused. We cannot rely solely on blanket restrictions or parental oversight for effective safeguarding. The impact of technology on children is a complex public health and children’s rights issue. Balanced,

evidence-informed approaches are needed to protect child development, reduce online harm and support positive digital engagement. Investment in supporting families, education in early years and mental health services is also crucial. The Psychological Society of Ireland looks forward to working with the committee and all stakeholders to ensure that children’s rights, mental and physical health and development across all domains remain central to decision-making.

I thank the committee for inviting the Irish Safer Internet Centre, ISIC, today. We welcome the opportunity to speak to members about the work we do and how we believe it contributes to the safety of children online. Online harms are growing in scale and complexity yet children's rights to safety and protection in digital spaces remain insufficiently embedded in policy and practice. The burden is frequently shifted onto parents to manage online environments while platforms continue to profit from systems that enable harm. Accountability must sit primarily with the companies that design and control these spaces. ISIC’s vision is a positive and inclusive digital world where children are safe and protected. The centre is a partnership of four national organisations, Irish Internet Hotline, ISPCC, the National Parents Council and Webwise, with a mission to make the Internet safer for children, funded by the EU Commission and co-ordinated by the Department of justice. The work of the centre is supported by a cross-government advisory group. The consortium was appointed over a decade ago by the European Commission better Internet for kids strategy as the safer Internet centre in Ireland and is one of 33 Internet centres in Europe. The centre comprises an awareness centre, helpline, hotline and youth participation service. The centres are national hubs established across Europe, Iceland and Norway which provide essential services in synergy with the three pillars of the European better Internet for kids strategy, namely, a safe digital environment to protect children from harmful and illegal online content; empowering children in the digital world and giving them the necessary skills to make safe choices and express themselves online; and improving children’s active participation with more child-led activities to foster innovative and creative digital experiences. We have demonstrated that our strength is in working together as a consortium and our activities complement each other. Our key recommendations are to develop a national targeted awareness and signposting campaign led by the centre to help parents and carers to navigate online safety resources and supports; resource and promote the centre's services as a first point of contact for young people, schools, families and the public seeking support to report illegal and harmful activity online in line with the EU strategy; to mandate safe, ethical and age-appropriate design for all digital products and services used by children that respects rights, preserves privacy and enhances the well-being of users. Many online harms stem directly from flawed design choices. They also include embedding digital media literacy consistently across the curriculum from early childhood onward.

Young people want regular, practical online safety education. This requires strengthened teacher education starting at pre-service level. The recommendations also include supporting and resourcing an annual survey of children’s and parents' media use and attitudes that aligns with the EU kids online survey. Our key concerns are that while advances in AI offer considerable benefits enhancing efficiency, supporting innovation and improving safety tools, they also introduce significant risks. AI has the potential to produce a significant increase in CSAM while facilitating scams and other forms of illegal behaviour. Self-generated material is increasing and takes several forms. Sexual extortion is also rising, especially for boys, with motivations including CSAM production, financial gain and nihilistic violent extremism. Young people have told us they want to be included in discussions on matters that concern them, they want platforms to be made safer and want more digital media literacy education. There is an abdication of responsibility for children’s online safety. Parents are often blamed for not safeguarding enough while platforms avoid accountability for harmful content and design. The work of ISIC depends heavily on an EU Commission action grant which covers 50% of its programme costs. However, EU funding cycles range from 12 to 36 months, are not guaranteed and require each partner organisation to independently secure the remaining 50% match funding. This funding model is challenging and can limit the centre's impact and its ability to drive meaningful change.

The centre is a robust, well-established multidisciplinary consortium whose work is even more relevant today than when it was founded in 2008. Its partnership spans all facets of online child safety, striving to ensure that children, supported by parents and educators, enjoy a positive online experience while reducing risks and harms.

I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before the committee today and to speak to the submission from the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre. Our centre is Ireland's leading research centre on bullying, cyberbullying and online safety. Our research has informed policy and practice nationally and internationally, and today's submission draws on a substantial body of peer-reviewed Irish and international evidence focused on children and young people.

The central message we wish to convey is that online safety cannot be reduced to simple debates about screen time or technology bans. The evidence is very clear: screen time alone is a weak and inconsistent predictor of harm. What matters far more are specific online experiences, particularly cyberbullying and peer harm, image-based sexual abuse, coercive or pressurised sexual communication, appearance-related distress, exposure to misogynistic and extremist content, and the impact of digital engagement on sleep and well-being. Our research shows that bullying and cyberbullying remain persistent harms across childhood and adolescence, with a significant minority of young people directly affected and many more exposed as bystanders. In fact, bystander exposure to online bullying is now a common experience, yet many young people report low confidence in knowing how to intervene or report harm. This has important implications for policy because it highlights the need to invest not only in reporting systems but also in strengthening young people's self-efficacy and peer support.

We are also deeply concerned about the gendered nature of emerging online harms. Algorithms amplify influencer cultures which are increasingly normalising misogyny, entitlement and sexual harassment, especially among boys, while simultaneously escalating risks to girls through image-based abuse and the misuse of Al-enabled nudification tools. These developments represent a serious threat to children's dignity, safety and equality, and they underline the urgent need for robust regulation, safety by design, and platform accountability.

Importantly, our evidence also cautions against policy responses that exclude children and young people from decision-making. Measures such as smartphone or social media bans are often introduced without meaningful consultation, despite children's right to be heard in matters affecting their lives. Moreover, there is currently poor evidence that such bans improve mental well-being or reduce harm, particularly when they are not accompanied by broader educational, regulatory and rights-based approaches.

The evidence strongly supports a shift toward experience-focused online safety policy, one that prioritises children's rights, addresses high-risk online interactions and strengthens reporting and bystander responses while holding platforms accountable for the design and amplification of harmful content. At the same time, it is essential to recognise that digital technologies also play a positive and deeply embedded role in children's learning, relationships and identity development. We look forward to discussing these issues further with the committee and to supporting evidence-based policy that genuinely improves the online safety and well-being of children and young people in Ireland.

We are here today on behalf of the UNESCO chair team in children, youth and civic engagement at the University of Galway. We are here to highlight the significance of two key areas in the effective response to the challenge of social media to the online safety and well-being of children and young people. The first of these is parenting support. Our position is as follows. Parents and parenting are critical to the development and safety of children. Parents need and want support in their parenting role. High quality, evidence-based family and parent support interventions can make a significant difference to outcomes for children and parents’ own well-being. However, more research is needed on the effectiveness of parenting support interventions focused on online safety and well-being. Through the existing national model for parenting support services and the extensive network of provision, the capacity exists to respond to parents’ needs in this area, if it is fully resourced.

The second key area is empathy. Empathy and prosocial behaviour are widely recognised as critical competencies in addressing social polarisation. Our research has found that key factors that influence empathy and prosocial behaviour among adolescents are warm and supportive parenting, prosocial peer group norms, democratic school environments and active participation in structured social activities. However, empathy can be hindered in online environments due to anonymity and the lack of face-to-face contact, meaning that abusive behaviour can become normalised. Social media use has both positive and negative consequences for empathy and prosocial behaviour. We know that under the right conditions and with the right strategies, empathy is a capacity that can be developed. We developed and tested the activating social empathy programme for secondary schools in Ireland. Participation in the programme was linked with higher empathy and prosocial responding. More research is needed on how empathy intervention can incorporate a focus on the online environment and behaviour, and how online environments can be designed to promote empathy.

We suggest that any policy response reflects two further considerations. Meaningful engagement with children and young people is critical to the development of policy responses. Ireland is a recognised policy and practice leader in youth participation, and the policy and service infrastructure are in place to ensure that young people’s voices are heard. Second, the challenge of social media should be framed as a public health issue. This means working from interventions with parents and young people all the way to public health messaging regarding social media use. A public health approach must incorporate a specific focus on the responsibilities of social media companies to ensure their platforms are safe for children and young people.

I thank all our guests for their opening statements. It is proposed to publish the opening statements to the Oireachtas website. Is that agreed? Agreed. Before I call members, I remind them that they will be allocated seven minutes' speaking time, and this allocation must include the response from the witnesses. I will allow a brief second round of questioning. Members should indicate to me if they wish to ask additional questions. I ask members when putting their questions to ensure that they strictly adhere to the agenda topic under consideration at this meeting and, if possible, to direct their question to the witness they wish to have respond. We will start with Deputy Kerrane.

My first question is to Ms Connolly. The online safety programme was set up in 2014, which was probably a little bit ahead of its time. Social media-wise it was probably mainly Facebook. I do not think we had Instagram, certainly not to the degree we have it today, or TikTok and the many other platforms that exist either. How has it moved from 2014 in terms of that programme? I presume it has had to be updated all the time. Can Ms Connolly compare what she is seeing today with what was there as the programme set out in 2014?

We probably have all forgotten this, but when we started, we used to talk about two worlds, the online world and the offline world. We recognise that, over the time of our involvement, that has stopped. We all recognise this is the world we all live in. That is a significant shift. It is important that we recognise what it is like for children growing up in the world today. That is one thing that is different. Another thing that is really interesting is what Professor Canavan said about social media being a public health issue. That is a really clear insight that we now need to recognise in terms of how we approach it. The third thing that is really clear is that there are a variety of stakeholders who all come with a different perspective, and never more so in the sense that it is an attention economy. Our attention is constantly looked for both as adults and as children or young people. Children and young people in some ways have never been more informed but in other ways they have never been more vulnerable. We need to bear in mind our responsibilities as adults in that context. While we recognise the importance of listening to children and young people as growing individuals, we also have a key responsibility in terms of how we protect and legislate on their behalf. It has become ever more complex and nuanced, and our responsibility as adults is key. Ms McLoughlin may want to come in.

I will speak to keeping the programme updated and relevant.

That is a constant challenge considering how fast everything moves in the online world and how fast online trends come and go. It is a challenge for young people, parents, teachers, schools and our programme. We like to make our programme a two-way one. We will be there to give guidance, to hear from children about their concerns online and what they are experiencing and to hear from parents about their concerns and challenges. Keeping up to date is definitely one of the biggest challenges because we know new online harms emerge rapidly, and keeping on top of that is a challenge.

The nature of social media is so different. I think back to what I would have been on in 2014. I did my leaving certificate in 2010 when Bebo was all the rage for post-primary school students. On Bebo, you had three love hearts you could share every day and conversation at that time revolved around who would get the love heart today. You could set out your top ten friends, who moved around daily or weekly. That was the height of what we were exposed to as teenagers compared with ten or 15 years later. It is a world apart from what is there now.

It is really interesting to get the psychological view on this. Again, I think back to childhood in the nineties and early noughties when all you really had was your imagination and you were out in the fields and did not have anything else. Childhood is different today. Much of it revolves around the online world, including online gaming. It involves a screen. I am trying to get at the psychological impact on children and their childhood.

One of the challenges is that it is not so much that children are spending more time gaming or online. Some of the difficulty is that some of the essential developmental experiences children used to have are being displaced by some of their online activities. The Deputy mentioned children playing in the fields or sitting on a gate waiting for somebody to collect them from an activity. At one point, children might have been processing their day or the things that happened to them during the day but now they are not getting the chance to process all the things that have happened during that time because they are scrolling or looking things up. While we support innovation and those types of technologies bring such a wealth of information and so many advances for us, the danger is that many of us, not just children, are now on information overload and cannot process everything we are bombarded with. For children, that means they cannot process everything and in some instances are being robbed of the chance to get that development.

I also think in terms of using your imagination.

There is a risk that we can overly simplify that. We always want to point to gaming and tech. It is not as simple as that.

I tend to agree. Social media and gaming constitute a magnifier and multiplier in terms of risk to mental health, but they are not the only risk. I work in CAMHS so I work with very vulnerable children who are self-harming, are suicidal or struggle with body image. It is interesting that when you listen to them tell their stories, they never say the core issue was that they were cyberbullied. The issues are the same as when we were children. They are just magnified by social media. We are talking about loneliness and isolation. They just do not want to seen as lonely. Why do children keep going back to these websites even when they experience harm? It is because they also experience connection and would rather have some connection, even if it is marginally harmful than risk being lonely. Neurodivergent children find a sense of connection. I have treated children who have had very difficult experiences, particularly on sites we are not talking about. There is a risk that we get pulled into talking about the big ones and ignore the ones that are not there, such as Discord servers. Discord servers were never banned under the Australian ban, yet they are unregulated and unmoderated because they are not a broadcast website. Children go in and find communities where they can be whatever they want to be but so can the people who want to cause harm. We have to make sure that, in thinking about the big sites, we do not bring about the law of unintended harm where we push them onto the sites that are less regulated and less moderated but still cause harm.

The information we are receiving is staggering. I am a parent to three. I took the easy way out. The easiest thing to do was give them the device. Professor Canavan mentioned support for parents. Coming from where I am, I think it is a bit late but it is not late for my children, two of whom are adults. It is not late for their generation and their children so it starts here. Much of the talk has been about bans. We need to get rid of the disgusting content that children can avail of. Will it require an all-out ban? It is time for a serious discussion of that in this committee. We see the benefits of technology. One person said that technology can kill but it can also cure. The committee has to discuss how we control that because we need to protect our children and future children.

I will have questions on the outright bans other countries have. Dr. Cassidy warned that overly rigid or automated online safety systems can unintentionally block legitimate help-seeking and even drive vulnerable young people into more hidden and unsafe spaces. What practical steps should legislators take to ensure that tech companies design safeguards that protect children from harm while still preserving access to supportive recovery-focused online communities?

As several of my colleagues have mentioned, there are numerous online spaces that are safe and regulated. Many of the young people with whom I work are neurodivergent. It is very easy for us to just say "no tech". I appreciate the things the Senator pointed out. I am a parent too. If we just put a device in front of a child's face when he or she is in the middle of something difficult and that stops what is happening in the moment, he or she may not learn to regulate what is happening to him or her. That is also a danger for that child. At the same time, with regard to some of the things Mr. Smyth spoke about here, it is very difficult for legislators. In respect of handing everything back to the parents and saying this is about free choice and a parent's decision or right to do this, I consider myself to be a tech-savvy parent and yet before I know it, my child has figured out how to get around two hours each evening or there is some site that someone can sneak through. No matter how tech-savvy someone is, his or her child is far more tech-savvy.

I will discuss the example of the UK where there was understandably a lot of concern about increases in rates of self-harm. There was a big campaign among politicians in the UK to ban the hashtag #selfharm so they did. Going back to the law of unintended consequences, what they did not think about was it also banned the hashtags #selfharmhelp and #selfharmrecovery, so young people who wanted to find stories of recovery, hope and ways through it could not access this help. It involves all of us as advisers, politicians and companies asking what will happen if we do this and whether it will stop people from getting the help they need because recovery and hope are crucial to mental health. It is a case of "I have this but is there anyone who has come through this and has found a way through it?", but they did not think about that.

They are the kinds of things we have to learn from other jurisdictions: their experiences and what has not worked.

Then the policies would have to be responsive and listen to all those pieces. It is a matter of meaningful engagement while listening to the parents. These are children's rights issues. For example, I know children who, if they did not have access to some sort of technology, would also not have access to socialisation. This is not flat. It is so multi-layered and complex that we need to think of the instances Mr. Smyth and our colleagues here are speaking about.

I am not a tech-savvy parent. It was early in the millennium that this started creeping up, and now it is AI and now, as far as I can see, it has probably gone out of control. It is time to set a reset button at some level and go back and start again. Maybe that is possible, maybe it is not. We have many organisations coming in here and we hear the same reports. The upward trend has gone to a certain extent that it is either an outright ban or nothing and that reset button has to set in. That is my opinion and it is a question I need to get across to the witnesses.

We know prohibition does not work. We know that it is illegal for children to smoke and it is illegal for children to drink. We cannot put alcohol back in the bottle. We cannot make it go away. The Internet is not going away. It is how we teach and educate parents how to do this. You can go onto Google and ask what every parent needs to know about Snapchat and it will give you a one-page "this is what you need to know". Tech is an issue for parents, but it is a matter of educating more parents on how to deal with it. It is about rights. My oldest child has access to Snapchat but I decide for how long because it is on my phone and I click a button. If she wants more, she can get more. Most of the time I say no because it is about parenting and having boundaries. When children say, "I want to go into the city centre for two hours", we have the ability to say no and to have boundaries. It is also about empowering parents. For parents who do not know how to do this, how do we teach them? It is about public health campaigns. Like speakers have said, this is a public health issue, so we respond in a public health way. We know that when there is an increase in road deaths, we do not just have enforcement but we also have public health campaigns. How many of the members have seen the recent ad on TV - it is very effective - where a child is walking through a shopping centre and someone says congratulations Mary on her sporting game on her birthday and wishes her a happy birthday? It is memorable. We remember the ad where we see the car driving down, the kid playing with the ball and the car crashing and flipping over, because it is visible. It is public health. We are drawing awareness. We need to make sure we do that too.

And is-----

You can come back in during a second round. Go raibh maith agat. Now we move to Deputy Connolly.

I welcome all the witnesses. I apologise for being late. Already I have found the discussion really interesting.

I am a primary school teacher by profession so I have seen a lot of change in this over time. The focus of the debate in recent weeks has been on the harmful content, but there are so many areas of this that cause and generate concern. Obviously, one - I think Professor Canavan spoke about it - is the opportunity to bully online and the lack of empathy and people participating online. There is the risk of grooming and accessibility to children by bad actors. There is the whole issue of addiction to gaming and then addiction to gambling that arises from that. It is so varied and wide. That is the concern. As I said, there has been a recent debate, rightly so, on the harmful content, but it is so much broader than that, and we need to focus on all the issues and try to challenge them all.

May I ask about the Psychological Society's contribution? It is placing the responsibility for the protection of my children onto the technological companies rather than onto me.

I hear what the Deputy is saying. It is not that there is no parental responsibility. I am also a parent. I consider myself reasonably tech savvy. Somebody who creates a device or a technology understands. I heard some of our colleagues here use the term "safety by design". If we start out with a technology that has better safety built in from the start, a parent who does not have the understanding of that sort of technology has more ability to say, "No, you are only going to do an hour and we are going to do an hour after we have done our homework and gone for a run or done all the things that we as a family have chosen to do." Those are things in line with our values or the things we feel are important, whereas if you think about the number of things that tech companies or we know about addiction, a lot of that stuff is built in already.

But there is the challenge that was relayed to us of children becoming aware of how they can overcome these technological advances.

I know.

The companies, I am sure, are working on those as well.

Of course.

It is across the globe that people are developing these things.

We can build that in, by the way. We can build stuff like that into supporting innovation. Professor Canavan spoke about empathy. There is no reason we cannot make learning games fun. There are a lot of great things we can do with technology, but what I do not want is this irresponsible thing where we just say this is all the parents' fault and let us turn our back while companies make billions and children are harmed. This is a public health issue and children are being harmed.

On that point, and I should know this, perhaps, is the Department of Health spending money on it as a public health issue? Are any of the witnesses aware that it is? That advertisement Mr Smyth referred to is maybe by the Department of children. As a public health issue, in the same way that we now have labelling on alcohol bottles and labelling on boxes of tobacco, is anyone aware whether the Department of Health is expending money on it?

There was a health task force. I think it was led by Jillian van Turnhout. There was a report done last year on looking at a ban, essentially.

I think more so in terms of advertising and promotion of the fact that the dangers are inherent in the use of the device or the use of the online world. It is something the Department of Health needs to look at. I can empathise with what Senator Kennelly said. I was similar in my house. I would be interested in the witnesses' opinion on this. During the Covid pandemic, the standards in our house deteriorated, I am afraid, as did the standards of limiting the use of devices. Do the witnesses think it had an impact?

I think Covid had an impact on a lot of us in a lot of ways.

On this area in particular?

For sure, yes.

We have seen an explosion in the number of referrals to CAMHS. I would say it has probably more than doubled in the past ten years. At the start of my teaching career it was kind of a fringe service or a service to which only a very small number of children were referred. We have seen an explosion of that. I do not know if there is any data or precise science that can relate it directly to the increased use of the online world. Is there?

No, and I have been a working counsellor for 24 years so I have seen a long journey in terms of the types of young people who are coming in and the types of presentations. Also, we have worked on public health campaigns with the Department of Health focusing on reducing stigma in mental health and encouraging help-seeking. There is also a correlation there in that if we encourage people to come forward and seek more help, we put more funding into it and we create more teams, people will come and get more help. What we are seeing - certainly, I have been seeing it anyway - is a significant increase in the rates of young people presenting with eating disorders. The team I work on used to get maybe one or two a year; now we are getting somewhere between 30 and 40. There is definitely, particularly among young women, a massive increase in their perception of not being good enough. That is probably where AI will have a role in this too. We do not have the research yet to back it up, but, anecdotally, they are saying, "If I looked like this", with an assumption, a presumption, that they would be happier, but once they start it and get into it, it is very difficult for them to pull it back. We are seeing more but there is also consistency of anxiety. Kids are anxious. They are worried. They are scared. Again, AI plays a role. They are seeking reassurance but they are also seeking connection. Some of the core things about kids seeking connection when they are lonely and seeking reassurance are still there, and AI will never replace that, but that is where parents and families come into it. The question is how to help to create a better connection with our kids so they do not need chatbots or AI to have that connection.

That issue of eating disorders might have some relationship with the fact that more young people are spending time online and saying, "Look at that person, look at their life and look at how happy they are, and I do not have those experiences."

A little bit, but they are also wise enough to spot when it is filtered - quicker than I am. They can spot an image and say, "That has a filter put onto it via Snapchat", or "That has been altered". So they know it is not real, but also they are doing it themselves.

May I ask Barnardos about the workshops? Is there a cost for the school if it wants to undertake the workshop?

There is an admin fee, and we provide them at a very low rate.

Yes. It is a good rate. It is not very expensive.

It is extremely affordable.

Is it a nationwide service?

Yes, it is nationwide. We have trainers all across the State. We have engaged with over 1,000 schools nationwide and we have reached over 100,000 children.

I am not sure how many schools are aware of it. That is what I am saying.

Another point to add, which Ms McLoughlin told me earlier, is that schools really want it in person.

Yes, absolutely. They have Webwise but-----

We will now move to Deputy Grace Boland.

The witnesses are very welcome. As a mum of two girls who just turned nine, I am obviously very focused on this area, and terrified. I hear what is being said. We have to teach and educate, not only the children but the teachers, the families, the parents and the older brothers and sisters, because this is not going away.

I was struck by some of what was said about safety by design. Will the witnesses talk about what mandatory safety by design might look like and how we could put that into Irish law? I am also conscious that, later today, US tech companies will speak to US politicians about regulation with a particular focus on Europe. We are trying to balance what we do and do the best we can while being responsible and conscious that, on the other side of the water, there is a huge push-back from tech companies.

Safety by design is really important. A ban is simply a blunt instrument. We should be looking at this issue and the challenges of online safety for children as a multipronged approach, supporting parents with resources and how parents might support their children to keep safe online. Legislatively, it could involve commencing article 30 of the Data Protection Act which specifically looks at the microprofiling and targeting of children. That has not been commenced-----

Can I just check does Ms Cross mean section 30 of the Irish Data Protection Act?

Yes. That prohibits companies from microtargeting and profiling children online. That has not been commenced because it has not been defined and there are a number of constitutional challenges to that as well. Things like that could put a few more parameters on the platforms.

Earlier, Mr. Smyth spoke about the multiplier effect and the amplifier effect. Those effects are of the tools the companies are putting in place to gather data. That is all they want to do. All of their systems are designed to do this. We have seen proofs the other way as well, but you can see evidence that these tools are designed to suck in as much data in this attention economy they have developed. They are optimising all of their services for that and that alone. The delay that has been put in place by Australia could be reframed in that way. It is not a ban on children accessing social media. It is a ban on companies accessing the children's data. If you reframe it that way, you get to safer by design.

The companies have had 25 years of being told their way of doing business is causing problems in society. They have done nothing. They design their tools to be addictive and keep your eyeballs on the screen. To remove that manipulation of people - adults and children - which will decrease their data is what the Australian ban on the companies is all about.

Taking things like the recommender algorithm or whatever it is technically called, would Mr. Moran like to see that turned off for everyone or for a group in particular?

Turning it off will not work because that is like taking the control off a hose. It just will not work. Transparency on those algorithms-----

What does that look like?

-----and what those algorithms are doing and the algorithmic engines of the companies is one of the issues that could be addressed with safer by design. Dr. Mary Aiken makes a very good point in talking all of the time how algorithms push people to the edge constantly. If you ask about dietary stuff, you will eventually see bulimic and anorexic content. It is the repetition and constant flow of content that leads to things like radicalisation and other difficulties.

Will Mr. Moran help me on that? What does that look like for us? How do we tackle this algorithm?

I will just come in to add to what Mr. Moran has said. The point was made, and we really need to remember, that these companies have had the guts of 20 years to get it right. I have been in here four or five times and we have had the same conversation. Things are worse now than they were five or ten years ago. Part of that is because of the fundamental assumptions around the Internet and social media. These are that it is free to all, anyone can express themselves on it and it is the purest form of democracy. There is more freedom online than there is offline. It might be time to revisit that and think about it again. It does not mean we need to go down the road of censorship or anything like that - there will be accusations of that - but we need to think about what does it mean to design something that can be used by the general public. We have been through this before in other industries.

For example, we can look at the motor industry. When motor cars were designed first, they were reckless. There were people knocked down and killed all of the time. People just drove anywhere they wanted on them. Eventually, motor companies were required to design cars to work safely. Regulations were put in, new roads were put in and different stakeholders came together to achieve that. We need to do that. When the Deputy asks what safety by design looks like, it means that people who are making things have to work with people who know about how society works, how psychology works and that they are involved from the very beginning.

The impression I have is that in these technology companies, there are some really smart people with policy, sociology and psychology backgrounds and they are trying their best, a lot of the time, to put some direction around what the technology people are coming up with but they do not actually seem to work together. We must see if we can get those people working together and oblige them to work together. No product should be put out before it is tested according to regulation. I do not mean tested with internal rules, guides or whatever within the company but regulations we set down as a State or as the European Union.

If we look at the recent crisis about the nudification abilities that Grok put out, that must not have gone through anybody who is concerned about safety. It must not have. Nothing should go out unless it has gone through a level of safety requirements that are set externally by the State or the European Union.

There are vested interests at the heart of it.

Yes.

That needs to be a requirement on all tech companies.

Yes.

It was already said but at the end of the day, these are for-profit companies. What big tech is interested in is keeping people online. A number of people have used the "recommender algorithms" term, which is the secret sauce. They will put you wherever will keep you online, no matter how bad it is for you. That is why we need to see that transparency about the algorithms, and why you will get kick-back.

We almost have to put X in a different bracket on the basis of the guy who runs it. I am not sure he operates on any sort of normal plane at this time because who would think it was a clever idea to allow every kid who had access to X to have access to nudification? That is before you talk about predators and all of the rest of it. To try to ensconce that in the term "freedom of speech" is just disgusting. There is nothing like that. In a perfect world, you would not even need rules. This just would not happen.

The other thing is, and I think it was brought up at the media committee yesterday, Google could quite easily have taken it off the app store. If nobody has access to it or access is reduced, there is further pressure. Even from our committee hearing last week, we know there is a need for a greater level of legislation.

It is accepted that when we are talking about the Garda or the courts or whatever, it is very slow. We really need to see the European Commission taking action at some level through the Digital Services Act. The fact is we are probably playing around this until we put some sort of pressure at some level on big tech companies as regards making them in some way responsible as publishers. We might not necessarily be talking about the exact same rules as newspapers, and there may be a caveat, but we have all seen the really harmful content, and we have seen the misinformation and disinformation that is being put out there. Given the AI capacity and the technological capacity they have, it is just ridiculous to think that they would not have the information they did not provide to the committee members yesterday about kids using their services. The other reality is they could quite easily deal with an awful lot of this stuff that nobody has even sought. It could be taken down straight away and you or I would not have to complain through a really ponderous system.

I get that we need to teach kids resilience and all the rest of it but really and truly we need to take on big tech. This is not to take away from the positives but they could quite easily make this run well and run better. I am fairly sure they would still make a considerable amount of money. This is on big tech. I used to look at Facebook and everything somewhat differently, but unfortunately it has now fallen into the same bracket as big tobacco big and, from time to time, big pharma. It is utterly regrettable. The circumstances with the American regime, for the want of a better term, does not help. It is a case, literally, of us needing the legislation and the power. It needs to happen at a European level while we also have to play our own part. Perhaps someone wants to make a comment on that. With regard to the algorithms, when we get transparency, we need to stop them doing what they are doing. They send people down a rabbit hole and that is why they have been taken on in court cases, which is going to happen in relation to impacting detrimentally on people's mental health.

I will respond to that and link it to what Deputy Boland said and what Professor O'Higgins Norman said and the safety by design. Deputy Ó Murchú lumps these companies in with pharma and with tobacco companies, which are both very strongly regulated sectors-----

I left out big oil as well. Again, it took a long time for regulations to put manners on any of these companies, and I am not sure it is always there.

As Professor O'Higgins Norman has said, with all of their design, they have very smart people working in those companies who clearly are not doing safety assessments before these products are hitting the market. That is clear but it should also be linked in to what Deputy Boland was saying, which is that they know they have been doing all this harm over the years and they have not-----

They are doing it on purpose.

They are doing it on purpose because their sole purpose is profit. They are companies after all and their sole purpose is profit. It is up to us to put the regulations in place that will have a look at these types of things, to force safety assessments before these products hit the market, and to have transparency on the algorithms. Again we are down to asking if age verification is the fulcrum on which it all turns, so that they can then be told that this or that algorithm should not be used for children or for people under a certain age, and therefore they can design for that age group rather than just having an algorithm that is designed only for the harvesting of data.

Sending material that relates to food disorders to people with food disorder issues just tells us that it is beyond wrong. In another time and place I think we would have used the term that it is absolutely evil.

Perhaps some of the witnesses could say what they perceive as possible. We know the regulations and we know the bits we would like, but as far as possible what would be some element of making them responsible as a publisher and then forcing them to use their technological know-how to actually make sure we do not see an awful lot of this stuff?

Regarding how children and young people use social media, in our research we have found very high trust levels of the social media companies. We would ask "What if you come across harm?", and they would say that they would report it and it would be dealt with. We know this is not always the case and in fact it is the opposite a lot of the time. It is important to remember that young people do have that kind of trust at times.

Therefore they are more likely to believe what they see.

Exactly. To link to the Deputy's question about publishing, if I were to build a TV studio on the outside of Dublin, put all the state-of-the-art equipment into it, leave the front door wide open and say that anyone go in there and make whatever you want, if I then come back when they are finished, curate that and put it out, I think I would have some responsibility there. I do not really understand always what the difference is with the Internet. I know that is kind of controversial. When I look at the trust that young people have in what they receive online, which comes through in our research, it means that we have to rethink the way this is done. If it is to consider the companies as publishers, then maybe that is the way to go.

I apologise for being late. I thank all the witnesses for being with us this morning, and for their expertise and experience. I would love to build on the example given with regard to the evolution of the motor car. When it started, it was bedlam and then responsibility was put on car companies to make them safer. Ultimately, who is it that governs the safety of our roads? It is the State. This is who governs the safety, the enforcement of the law, and the regulations. Are we just getting it wrong when it comes to putting responsibility on providers and on platforms? We are here with the latest moral panic for young people and children. We are talking about them, and absolutely that is our job, but are we completely missing the glaringly obvious here when it comes to who is responsible and what we should be doing? I am happy for any witness to come in on that.

That is where we start, which is a public health approach. We would start there and I would ask what is happening in terms of regulation and enforcement and really work hard at that. It is a pretty obvious question. I go back to the point that was made earlier that the world is not an online world and an offline world. The world is this world now and this is going to be here. It is not only about regulation but also about some way of engaging with these companies and asking what we can do. For example, as we touched on in our contribution, what is the possibility of design towards empathy online? These things are possible. If it can be designed to draw people towards products or whatever else, then they can design it to draw people towards prosocial behaviour and the good things we want. It is a case of regulation but not just a stick. It is also an engagement. Maybe there is the possibility of profit in those kinds of models as there is in the models that actually have negative consequences for children and young people. I will pick up on the general point that we have to remember we are talking about children and young people today but this affects us all. We are all in this. We all have this challenge in our daily lives. It is really important to highlight that as well.

We need to ensure we bring young people with us in this. We really need to make sure that we consult them as well. We also have to recognise that there are positives associated with what technology has achieved. If we do not do that in a balanced way, then children and young people will just ignore the grown-ups because they think we do not understand the benefits of what it can do. That is our responsibility and it is not easy because we know. Somebody referred to the world we live in. It is a pretty tough world we are living in at the moment. Young people are not just faced with the social media challenges but also the reality that things we have taken for granted about the way our world operates have now been really massively challenged. What we are doing here is in the context of a broader instability in the world where profit is king and it was ever thus. How we manage that is key.

As we are talking about the Government being responsible for the roads and the Government ultimately being responsible for this, then including the kids in it is absolutely fundamental. The Irish Safer Internet Centre talked about the EU kids online survey that we would love to do here. We have not been in a position to do it up to now, but it is also important to remember that time stops for no one.

It is important to have the kids involved, but also the recent kids - people from 18 to 22 - to ask them what their recent experiences were with this. We had surveys done. Webwise did a great survey that showed 20% of the kids asked said they would like a ban, but that means 80% would not. That is just about the ban. I am not talking about that in particular. I am just saying involving them is so important, as is involving recent kids in the dialogue.

Something has been so consistent over the series of meetings we have had. I am a social researcher coming from the social sciences and I think we run the risk of over-researching this topic and having no action. There is so much research already compiled. We know what children and young people have to say about being online, namely, there are positives and negatives and there are risks and real prosocial aspects. However, if we do not constitute a safe framework, then we are relying on a profit-making entity to decide to be prosocial and sacrifice a little bit of its profit. The witnesses will not find a bigger champion for hearing young people's voices on issues, and we have the NYCI doing incredible work right now with young people specifically about AI and what they have to say about that. The problem is young people keep telling us but we are not doing anything with what they tell us. That is the problem and ultimately that is why we are facing a fait accompli when it comes to a ban because we are going to say it is so complicated that anything will do, when actually it is so nuanced. We have shepherded children and young people into using social media, being online and embracing it. We have said IT is where you want to work. We have created this and hoped the concerns and dangers would go away, but they have worsened. The witnesses' collective voices are so important in this but we all need to ask where it starts. Companies choosing to not even come before the Oireachtas tells us our reliance on hoping they will buy into prosocial behaviour is not going to go far enough.

There is often a lot of talk about bans and about the harms. There was the question about whose ultimate responsibility it is. What if we take a step back and look at the starting point of what good looks like and how we create a better Internet for children and everybody? Maybe that is the starting point. Professor Sonia Livingstone talks a lot about a better Internet for kids and focusing on how we create good safe spaces and good digital environments where children can participate safely. We can ask what is the end goal and what would we all like to see ideally and then see who is best placed to create that. Not everything is set in stone. Things can still be improved.

If any of us created a building that allowed young people and children to be spoken to and targeted in the same way that happens online, the Garda would be on us, Tusla would be on us and we would be shut down within seconds.

The witnesses are really welcome. As far as I am concerned they are the experts in the online experience, good and bad, of children and that is why it is really important we listen to them. They keep referring to this as a public health issue. Under the heading of public health issue it is easy to see why a ban looks like the right thing to do. I want the witnesses to be as frightening as they wish. What are the implications? Mr. Smyth talked about the unintended consequences. What do they look like? What are his fears about bringing in a social media ban? I want to hear them, warts and all.

It is always risky asking me that question. I thank the Deputy. Let us say we follow the Australian example and ban the ten most commonly accessed platforms and sit back say we have protected children. Your average 14-year-old boy sees the ban, decides he wants to access material and goes on to Pornhub the next day. Have we protected children? Ireland is the fourth highest per capita accessor of Pornhub in the world. Does that protect children? How many members have heard of Omegle? They do not want to hear about it, trust me. How did I learn about it? It was from a group with anxious children from 13 to 15 who told me about it accidentally.

Do all the witnesses know about that? They do not, but most of them do.

Unfortunately. That is still there. I learned about that by listening to them in a group. I went on and looked at it to see what they were seeing and was shocked and disgusted by it, but a ban is not going to stop them accessing that, or any of the other thousands of other sites that will cause harm. This is their lived reality, but parents do not know that. They do not know these sites exist because they are not looking for it. Some of these platforms have safety built in to them. For example, my 12-year-old plays Roblox or FIFA. FIFA seems like a harmless enough game to be playing on the PlayStation, but if you have the settings such that they can play with an open chat with anybody, then you do not know who they are talking to. With a simple Google search for how to turn on restricted voice access on FIFA, you can press a couple of buttons and they can only chat to friends who you have approved. Some of this is there, but the question is whose responsibility this is. It is everybody's. It is all of ours. We cannot as parents, psychologists, gardaí or legislators sit back and say that it is too complicated and we do not understand it. That is what tech does. Google it. How do you turn on the restricted access on Roblox? Google it and it will tell you.

Does anyone else want to answer that?

Banning this is a really blunt instrument. As Mr. Smyth said, it is everyone's responsibility. If we ban, we are risking our children and young people going to unregulated spaces. They will find ways around it, as we are seeing happen in Australia. Also, they will not go to their parents and seek support from them because they are not meant to be on the Internet. Parents will then be reluctant to seek support because they will be asked why they were not watching their children better. You are banning the end user and putting the responsibility on the carer or parent of the end user while letting the platforms or any of the companies, large, small or medium, run riot and do what they want to do. We need to take a multifaceted approach. We need awareness campaigns that are targeted to parents. Parents are not a homogenous group. They all have different barriers and different challenges so we need to meet them where they are. We all, as adults, consume information in different ways. We do not always open our emails. We might have TikToks or whatever. We need to meet parents where they are at to give them the support. We need a targeted campaign. I think there was mention earlier of the really good campaigns we have seen around adverts for Coco's Law. All of that has been quite successful so we need to really think about it, but it is not just about banning the end user. It is about thinking how we can come at it from a targeted, more structured approach from everybody's point of view.

There is such an opportunity to really learn from what has not worked in relation to the ban in Australia and to really be informed in what this committee recommends. That is what I suggest.

Does Dr. McCashin want to speak as well? Before he does, does he feel we are missing something? I am a parent of two girls and it is a critical time for me in managing their relationship to the online space, but as somebody said earlier, we grew up in a world where there was offline and online and now they are completely integrated and this is natural to young people. Does how we perceive their world frustrate Dr. McCashin sometimes? We are trying to see the world through their eyes and does it frustrate him we may not be managing to?

It is an excellent question. Meeting young people where they are at rather than where we would like them to be is the biggest dilemma we hear when we speak to young people. We would like them to come to us or to our services first, but with mental health help-seeking there is a preference for the online first, whether that is GenAI bots or the NGO services. I think we are speaking in harmony with respect to any sort of ban. The question is for who. We are arguing for a framework of imposing regulation on industry before it can get close to children, in tandem with everything else.

However, beware of the law of unintended consequences. It is a recurring point here. I will just point to one study in the Greater Manchester area that looked at randomised schools with different levels of smartphone and social media restrictions, involving more than 5,000 students. One of the key results was that average social media time consumption was exactly the same across the board.

What are we trying to do and why? It is a hard question to answer and it is not a soundbite. However, there are four or five key recommendations that the online health task force actually pointed to.

When you talk about connection and feeling that they belong, in regard to Dr. McCashin's experience with CAMHS, how do they feel about that being taken away from them? Does that scare them?

The main reason they do not talk to us about what happened online is that they are scared of what the consequence is going to be. The primary consequence is that it would be taken from them and they would have no access to their phone and no access to their friends. Therefore they will not tell you. They are afraid to have those conversations with us. As adults we are afraid to have difficult conversations about the experiences they are going to have. They are fearful. I am going to be really direct about this because I can manage my own anxiety, but we as parents all need to as well. If our child has access to Snapchat, one of the greatest harms they are going to have on that is they will get sexual material sent to them inadvertently. Literally, to have a direct conversation with your teenager means saying to them what happens if they get sent a dick pic they did not want, which is that they come to you to talk to you and you will help them understand it, process it and deal with it. That is the language that they are hearing. That is what they are experiencing. What will happen? When we get anxious, it is about "what if". They get stuck on "what if". We need to have a conversation about the "then what". It is a case of saying to them then they are not going to get in trouble, you will reward them for coming to talk to you about it because the two of you can figure it out together. We need to deal with the "then whats". because that is their reality and we cannot be too anxious to have the conversations about it.

I thank the witnesses for coming in today and for their expertise. The witnesses' knowledge on the subject is mind-blowing. It is hard to be young these days and very hard to be a parent of a young person. I was laughing at Deputy Kerrane talking about Bebo. When I was young we were lucky to have the landline. You would be waiting for some lad to ring you and you would be looking at the phone, waiting for it to ring. My experience when I was young would have been very small. Yesterday, a colleague was telling me that his local school has just introduced pouches for mobile phones and a teacher in the school told him the noise level at lunchtime has increased so much because the students are now talking to each other rather than looking up things online. I thought that was interesting.

It is good to see the Irish Safer Internet Centre representatives again after the excellent presentation in the audiovisual room yesterday. I also acknowledge the fantastic work of my colleague, Senator Rabbitte, in this field. She is to be highly commended. The work of ISIC is amazing but I note it is funded from the EU, probably somewhat erratically. If ISIC had a magic wand, what long-term funding model would its representatives propose to guarantee their work? What role could the Government play in securing it?

We would wish for more stable funding, something that we could rely on for each of our organisations. We have Irish Internet Hotline, ourselves, the National Parents Council, Webwise and the ISPCC. Yes, we are 50% funded by the EU but we all then have to find 50% match funding. If we cannot get adequate match funding, we get less from the EU. That severely curtails what we can do. The EU funding is not guaranteed. We are currently awaiting the response to the most recent funding application. It is not guaranteed for us. As I said, the work we have been doing since 2008 has fundamentally changed since then. It has become more and more important, not less important, yet the funding seems to be more precarious. Therefore, we would wish for more stable funding from wherever that comes. We are co-ordinated by the Department of justice. It is about having an awareness campaign to highlight our existence, that we are capable of combining our expertise and experience, that people come to us as a first point of call and we direct them either to our own services or services that can provide what we cannot.

I thank Ms Cross. For the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre, so either Professor O'Higgins Norman or Dr. McCashin, they raised concerns about the rise of misogynistic influencer culture and AI-enabled image-based abuse. We spoke already about safety-by-design measures. What specific regulatory or safety-by-design measures are most urgently needed to protect girls in particular because they are probably most affected from these emerging harms?

I thank the Senator for the question. One specific example that has been raised in other committees is the mismatch between what every NGO and every young person is saying based on their experience versus what the industry is saying in its transparency reports, namely, that the harm is actioned in a reasonable timeframe. Speaking about young people's help-seeking behaviours, a lot of our research has pointed to their being aware of the tools sometimes but not using them to report. In regard to that mismatch, what can we do today and tomorrow where there is real harm happening? We need to find out why that mismatch is there with regard to what is happening across all of our services and what the industry is saying. We have existing legislation, we have an online safety commissioner and we have these best practices and the research evidence. We need to action that area, in particular the evolving harms brought by generative AI as it relates to deepfake imagery and an awareness campaign so that young people themselves understand their misperception of harm. Those are the two immediate issues we can action.

The next question is for Barnardos, either Ms Connolly or Ms McLoughlin. Barnardos' findings show the levels of cyberbullying and a 60% rate of not telling parents. That is unbelievable and frightening. Other than through education how can this be rectified? I would have put that at maybe 10%.

In studies we did last year and more recently, we found that children are far less likely to come to their parents or to have a conversation with their parents about anything negative online or about their negative experiences. That means that, as well as all the harms we know about, there are probably more hidden harms because they are not comfortable talking to their parents or to adults about their negative experiences online. Many of the reasons have been mentioned, such as fear of exclusion, fear of devices being removed, fear of judgment and that kind of thing. We find our best work with parents is on trying to create the space at home whereby there is that open conversation so that they are involved, that they know what their children are doing online and they have a non-judgmental, calm approach to discussion so that they are discussing all aspects of their online experiences. We hear from parents over and over again that they are overwhelmed and often feel blind. They often feel they do not know what is happening or what their children are experiencing online. We are encouraging parents to be involved as much as possible so that they can be there and can start to create that space where their children feel comfortable talking to them about all of their experiences. Parents really want some practical guidance on some of the things mentioned. They also want to know that they do not have to be tech experts, they do not have to be experts on these things to engage with their children. We try to encourage that kind of conversation and involvement daily, not just one-off talks.

I am grateful for the opportunity to ask some questions as I am not part of the committee. I really appreciate it. I thank the contributors. I was watching online. If we could have that open and honest conversation as mentioned by Mr. Smyth, about what the experts know is really going on, it would absolutely bring the place to standstill. We need to get to that stage.

Mr. Moran has done it twice for me in the past six months where I have been in a room where he has been speaking and he has managed to get a gasp from parents. I am a mother of three. I am through the gap now. My youngest is 20. However, I would have been that mother who would not have given them a phone until they were 14. I have been ten years a Member of these Houses and I have been ten years talking this same conversation. Not to repeat it, but I have come through all the different waves of parenting and got to the stage of cutting to the chase and using what is really going on. I refer to FIFA and all that. We thought the worst thing a few years ago was that there was an over-18s game that 14-year-olds were playing. We thought it was the worst thing ever. It was to do with killing and shooting - actually, far from it, because it was where they could have conversations.

The reason I am here today is that, in the past week, I have sat back and reflected not just on digital safety but on laws we have passed. We spend a lot of time bringing in new legislation. We see in relation to scramblers that parts of the law were not enforced. With the EU digital safety Act and the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022, and now that we have Coimisiún na Meán and a digital safety regulator, what parts of the Acts are not enforced? We did that all in good faith in order that we would get to a space of not just holding platforms to account but the purpose of it was to protect our children online. If we are still having the conversations, are there parts of it not enforced? That goes to all the witnesses because they all might have different aspects or experiences of it. There we have two relatively new laws, but are there parts of them not implemented to protect children? I will start with Professor O'Higgins Norman.

The one that comes to mind has already been mentioned. It is section 30 of the Data Protection Act, which was intended to stop the harvesting of data from minors. As far as I know, that still has not been commenced, and I think-----

In plain English, for the mother or father looking in today, will Professor O'Higgins Norman explain what harvesting of data means to a parent of a 14-year-old using Snapchat or whatever they are using?

For all users of social media and the Internet, every time we use it, we teach it about what we like and what we do and who we are. That data then is gathered and used to push other content back to us and, obviously, there is a profit in that for the company. To do that for someone who is over a certain age and who can consent to being part of that process is one thing, but if somebody is under age and has not consented or does not have the ability to consent fully to that process, that is problematic. My understanding is that section 30 of the Data Protection Act would help with that if it were to be commenced.

I thank Professor O'Higgins Norman. I know Mr. Moran has opinions on this.

I have opinions on most things, not always appreciated. The laws that are not enforced are one thing, but also laws could be revisited and updated. A very good example of that is the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 and the definitions of child sexual abuse material and child pornography, all of which was revisited by the Department of justice recently and brought to Cabinet. It is a matter of revisiting the definition and including child sexual exploitation material within that definition. Obviously, there was a desire not to make nudity illegal at the time in 1998, but now what we see is a lot of material, and at the Irish Internet Hotline we did work last year prompted by the European Union, which recognises this as an issue, that child sexual exploitation material is not illegal. If I take ten seconds just to explain the difference between abuse and exploitation, child abuse material is a concentration on the anal and genital region of the child or an actual sex act in progress. Now, it is obviously broader than that, but that is the key element there. Child sexual exploitation material, which does not fall under that definition, is where there is clear sexual exploitation of the child, for example, a seven-year-old girl dressed in suspenders and stockings and holding a sex toy. That would be an example of sexual exploitation material, but it is not illegal, so it does not get any attention and it is not asked that it be taken down because it is not illegal. We would therefore call for a revisit of that definition. We did, as I said, CSEM work last year and we were very successful. We had a 94% removal rate, and that has all been reported back to the committee. If you look at, say, the COPINE research that was done in University College Cork between 1999 and 2001, which seems like an eon ago, they brought out the COPINE scale, and on that scale you can see very clearly that CSEM must also be made illegal. It is very clear in the papers they brought out at that time. That is one of the main ones I would like to see brought in.

The legislation, the DSA and the online guidelines from Coimisiún na Meán are relatively new. They were enacted last year but they are relatively new and we do have to give them a chance to bed in and see what impact they are having. I know Coimisiún na Meán representatives were here last week and they spoke about a pilot programme they are running around cyberbullying. Again, there is a lot of work going on in the background that is not always visible, but we have to give these things a bit of time to bed in.

May I ask one last question? May I ask about the removal of algorithms?

The recommender systems?

Yes.

It is not quite as simple as just turning them off.

As I said earlier, if you were to turn them off, it would be like a fire hose in your face with the amount of information and content that is out there. However, designing algorithms specifically for children to remove the content would be far better. It is about a bit of transparency around algorithms. Algorithms serve their purpose. Yuval Harari in his book Nexus says of algorithms that it is not a question of whether or not they exist but a question of their alignment. When algorithms were designed to bring more eyeballs onto screens, the algorithms changed themselves, if you like, because they realised that it was outrage and violence and disgust that brought more attention. While they brought it in to get more attention on the screens, which is fine, the algorithms realised that pictures of kittens did not bring as much engagement as polarisation of politics. It is misalignment.

It now falls to me to ask the next round of questions. I will probably stay in and around empowerment and education because I think all the witnesses have referred in different ways to that.

Mr. Smyth brought up the websites that we know children are accessing in relation to Discord servers and Amigo. I think of Candy AI and things that you do not need even an app store to access. One thing that was brought up in last week's session was that the Irish Safer Internet Centre might be a good home for this. I do not know if the witnesses heard all that, but we can see that the Department of education is doing work at the moment with Webwise, which it has been working with for a long time, but schools may still be contracting in private businesses to do online safety talks in the evening. Barnardos is doing some online safety talks, so there is clearly more wanted from schools in terms of maybe sending Webwise out. Then the Department of communications has a responsibility, there is the Department of justice, and the Department of Health has a responsibility in education. We look even at the Minister of State with responsibility for older people because we are talking about children in this committee, but this spans all across society. What are the Irish Safer Internet Centre's thoughts? It is funded from the EU but is it the right home for us to take ownership when we are looking at all those Departments around education and empowerment? We can put in all the legislation and all the regulation we want, but the Internet is moving so fast. I often say, if we were here ten years ago, we would be talking about Bebo and whatever else, but even nine, ten or 11 months ago, would we have been talking about AI girlfriends and AI bots coaching people towards suicide? This will move faster and we do not know what will be out in six months' time or a year's time. In terms of education and empowerment, we have been talking about banning social media for under-16s, turning off Grok, making sure it cannot be used in this country, and all the other things we are talking about.

I have not seen the same level of urgency around algorithms. I know I can manipulate my algorithm. I have been looking a lot at the protests in America and what is happening. Sometimes I look at far-right stuff, in order to be informed, and then I am looking down at what children are seeing. All of a sudden, I can make an assessment that my Instagram is toxic at the moment. Then I might search a few fluffy cats and cows opening gates - they are very clever animals - and reset my algorithm because I have the awareness to do that. In terms of digital literacy, empowerment and education, is Mr. Moran's organisation the right home? What do the other groups think? I am sure the PSI has a lot to say about this as well.

We are a multidisciplinary consortium and coalition that has the Department of justice as a parent but also has many aunties and uncles. We have an advisory board that comes from the Departments of media, health and so on. All these are part of the advisory board. We answer up the line to the EU and deliver down the line in Ireland. That is what we have been doing since 2008. As organisations pulled together in this consortium, we consider ourselves to be multidisciplinary and to cover the whole gamut. I am sure everyone here is happy there is a holistic approach in that manner.

What about becoming that pinnacle go-to organisation? When I searched for Mr. Moran's organisation yesterday, it was sixth or seventh - at least - down in the Google search.

We are working very hard at the moment on-----

There are organisations under it that are higher, namely Webwise and Hotline. Naturally, we want people to go to Hotline to get images down. Does Mr. Moran's organisation need extra funding and resources to become that-----

Yes, to bed it down strongly and put it on a more stable funding platform.

In answer to the question about searching for us, the Safer Internet Centre has been existence for some time but has significant plans for 2026 to create the brand and bed it down better in the minds of the public. Each of our individual organisations, as the Cathaoirleach said, appears higher up the screen. We have particular functions and stay in our lanes. We work closely together and meet bi-weekly. We work well together as organisations.

It is not a criticism. I am going to a school in two weeks to try to help them with an Internet talk. I will be downloading the tools from Webwise. Before that, they had been trying to hire a private company. Whether it is the Fine Gael survey, the Barnardos survey or the CyberSafeKids survey, we hear parents and teachers all the time saying they do not have enough tools. We are learning in this committee and in the media committee that there are loads of tools and organisations but clearly society does not know where to go.

I share the Cathaoirleach's concern on there being so many resources out there of different qualities. Speakers going into schools, again, are of different qualities. We know from research that the most effective programmes are embedded in the school and delivered by the teachers and staff, rather than by outside speakers, who can supplement that work but the core educational activities in the school usually have enough within them to carry the safety agenda forward.

Why are teachers the ones wanting the external training?

They feel insecure and anxious about this. This is new for them. No two teachers are the same, just as we said earlier that no two parents are the same. Teachers have a lot to deal with in schools. We keep throwing stuff at schools and asking them to cope with it. We need to help teachers and school staff to embed everyday safety into the curriculum. One school principal told me recently he wished we would stop talking about protection and move to safety. Safety is about empowering young people.

We did this with the RSE programme in the 1980s and 1990s, the Stay Safe programme. We taught kids about the "No" feeling and being able to express that. We want to help teachers to empower young people to get the "No" feeling when they are online and know what to do about that. For example, at the DCU anti-bullying centre, with support from the Department of education and under the Cineáltas action plan, we have developed a research-based programme called FUSE. It is an anti-bullying and online safety programme, is available free to every school in the country and is self-administered by the teachers and staff in the school. That can be supplemented by other organisations and speakers coming in. Research shows that if a programme is embedded in the school and delivered by staff in the school, it will be more effective and sustainable in the long term.

We are regularly working at the pathological tail; it would be much better if we could be instead teaching wellness. I would love to see a time when we are the master of our technology, not its slave. We cannot tackle issues we are not talking about. A lot of the time, everything gets driven underground. It may be so frightening nobody can talk about it. Sometimes kids in schools are afraid. If they are caught with a device or looking at something frightening, scary, dangerous or against the school rules, then the device is taken off them or hidden or they will be shamed for whatever it is that they have or have seen. We have to take part in this design. It is education, it is health and it is all the things we are talking about.

There are many great resources out there and there are people doing different things, going into schools and working with children. Similar to the digital environment now, sometimes that can be information overload. There is a lot of information out there and it can be overwhelming. To have a central trusted source which the experts in certain areas can feed into and which has vetted information would be very helpful to people. Everything changes quickly. A parent can learn about privacy settings on a particular app and they can change in two weeks. It needs to be an ongoing thing that people can reach from where they are and that is accessible and manageable for them to digest.

Can I confirm the legislation Professor O'Higgins Norman and Mr. Moran are referring to, which they feel has not been enacted, is the digital age of consent legislation?

No, that is a different thing. We were referring to the Data Protection Act, section 30.

My understanding of the digital age of consent legislation was-----

It came under that.

Yes. Data could not be collated from the interactions of any child under 16 online.

Without their parents' consent.

Yes. Has that been enacted?

It has.

Article 30 specifically relates to the microtargeting and profiling of children, as in the algorithms. That piece has not been enacted. I believe it is because there is no definitive definition of what that is.

That could be a circular thing. Instead of banning children, you are banning the companies from accessing the children.

I thought that was the impact of the digital age of consent legislation in total, that companies could not gather the data from children's interactions online.

No, but the algorithms are seeking them out. That is really around-----

The same algorithm that recommends to Deputy Connolly recommends to his children.

We are going back to the point Professor O'Higgins Norman has championed about the need for the State to regulate the companies. To use the comparison with cars again, while we regulated the company, we also regulated the user heavily.

It is not an either-or; it has to be both ways. However, a lot of our conversation at the moment is about the user and about bans and restrictions. We do not seem to be making much progress on the other side which needs attention.

I am interested in the discussion about schools. Schools are employing lots of different professional companies to come in and discuss this and the chairperson has noted it very well. Barnardos is doing it. I agree that if the capacity was within the schools to undertake the work, which I think it is, it would have a greater impact. Have any of the witnesses reflected on the new primary school curriculum framework and whether they see that as an enhancement in this area of teaching empathy and teaching online safety?

There has been a huge amount of work done with the primary curriculum's new framework. It is not about teaching a subject in isolation. It is about integrating all the subjects together and finding teaching opportunities in SPHE as well as online. Many of those areas have totally merged. Again, we have to give that a bit of time to come into fruition but it looks really promising. It is a different approach to teaching than we have had before.

We have developed the FUSE programme which I mentioned earlier. It is delivered by teachers. It is designed to be delivered as part of the new framework. It is not an add-on programme. When teachers are delivering SPHE and RSE, this is a five-lesson programme they can use within that. We have learned from the data that the children report high levels of self-efficacy after they have completed the programme and so do the teachers who deliver it. They say they feel more confident in knowing what to do.

Is it designed for primary schools?

It is for primary and post-primary. It is in primary schools from third class and up, and it is in secondary schools from third year and below.

The other programme that is mentioned is the activating social empathy programme. Can that be incorporated into the secondary school curriculum?

Yes. We have a resource for junior certificate. It is available on the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment's website as a resource for teaching in the junior certificate curriculum. We also have a new transition year module. It was designed based on research. A few years ago we did a policy and curriculum review where we looked at how our policy and curriculum from early years right up to the end of secondary school promotes empathy. We found it is very strong on social and emotional learning, which is really good. However, we found it tends to target self-oriented social and emotional learning rather than other-oriented. We are talking about the world we live in now that is completely different. We are online-offline.

We developed this programme in recognition for the need for greater awareness and reflection on ourselves and our interaction with others. A key issue which came up in our research was around peer group norms. We have talked a lot about parents but actually peer groups are a really strong influence on behaviour online and whether it is prosocial or antisocial. Programmes like these give the opportunity to open up those discussions among peers, unpack them, think about what is going on and the different ways one can behave online. Those resources are there for teachers to use. Again, they are delivered by teachers and we have resources to support teachers to deliver them.

I am very conscious of the importance of sleep, not only for a child and also as an adult. In terms of trying to issue some kind of national guidance around the use of devices and sleep etc., I am also conscious that we do not want to be a nanny state. It is up to parents to parent. What do witnesses think that looks like? How could we do something that is actually useful for parents rather than preaching to parents?

Again, it is a multi-pronged approach. Parents know their children. It is not about their age and stage. Parents know their children best. It is about empowering parents and giving them resources to make that connection with their child, have the conversation with them and find out what works. We would never tell parents a seven-year-old should have two hours online because it is really about how they are using their phone and if it is taken away, what happens then? It is really about that connection, relationship, the quality of that connection and relationship that the parent has with their child and putting those resources, information and supports to parents in that way. Parents are not a homogenous group. Different cohorts of parents need different sets of supports. It is really important to recognise that and find it out. Also, parents need to know what is being said at school and mirror those conversations at home. Webwise does lots of programmes in school, like Be Kind Online, and its Safer Internet Day is coming up next week. It is about that kind of connection between the parent and child but also with the school so that everyone is having the same consistent messaging. That is really important. This is not easy and there is no simple solution here. We would all love to say we will banish something and it will be fine or we will just tell everyone they cannot have a phone in their bedroom. There just is not a simple solution. We do have to empower people and give them the supports that they need.

In the couple of minutes I have left I want to ask how we really address gender issues. How do we address the misogynistic influencer culture? What practical steps can we take to do that?

In the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre we published a toolkit for teachers and parents to address the impact of so-called masculinity influencers. We were amazed at the response and the appetite for teachers to finally have something. The language is a huge problem. There were huge national debates in the wake of Netflix's "Adolescence", for example. One tip from that resource it whatever one does, do not say "toxic masculinity" when trying to broach the topic with boys, for example. That will just provoke a backlash. We give some prosocial advice informed by the literature. It was initially inspired by the Andrew Tate effect that was called out about two years ago. We published reports on that.

A lot of colleagues have touched on the various online, offline effects. Some boys are engaging with this content merely to parrot what that influencer is saying and to provoke a reaction from a different gender. Others are implicitly believing the core messages that are being shared, which is very problematic while others can outright reject it at face value. Then there is maybe a fourth category of a boy that is initially parroting but then comes to implicitly believe it. The space is also riddled with being accused of trying to change the way people think. We see different gender patterns across society and there are a lot of debates around that so we have to be very careful in how we broach the topic. The first step is having a shared language and evidence-informed top tips. We have expanded our work to work in the youth justice and overall youth work sector as well. We hope to publish further research on that.

In terms of the take-up of that tool kit, have all schools taken that up? How could we drive better take-up of it?

For the reasons mentioned and also because it is unfortunately aligned with the polarisation of politics, that is, a certain version of masculinity is associated with certain elements of the political spectrum, we were quite clear in not sending the resources to schools and decided instead to have it as an open-access resource on the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre website, expressing a come-when-you-are-ready type message. It is an evolving space and one where we are trying not to provoke the unintended consequences.

I agree with that. I am just conscious that if schools do not know about it, they will not be able to access it.

The witnesses dealt with some of the material. We think of, say, Andrew Tate. From time to time you get this sort of stuff coming up on timelines. From time to time I might check out particular incidents that might have happened in the constituency.

You check two of them and suddenly you will have disinformation and misinformation and not only that, but really unhealthy stuff. Then you notice that with the likes of Andrew Tate, or whatever, some of the material would be reasonable and then it leads into utter madness. It is the psychological impact of this over time. I would always work on the basis that advertising works, otherwise Coca-Cola and Apple and so on would not invest in it. It makes a difference. If someone is being inundated with this material, they are choosing some of it but the rest of it is being thrown at them. The digital protection Act was brought up earlier. I will ask the question again about the long-term impact. Whatever about ourselves, there is the ability of the company to profile kids, take that information and target them differently, as well as being able to bring them to a different place. I ask about the psychological impact. I think we accept the idea that we just need to stop this. It is as straightforward as that.

We had a conversation about this very recently at our conference. I applaud the work of DCU. It is absolutely incredible. I know we are told not to use the phrase "toxic masculinity" but some of this creeps in. It is so insidious. I find it quite frightening. I have had conversations with colleagues and have often wondered if we could have an approach where we are promoting allyship. I have two boys myself. I do not want them consuming all of this horror that I am seeing and hearing. If that is all that young men are consuming and if that is what is being pumped out at them, how could they help but think any differently?

And they think it is everyone, because they have got five messages in ten minutes or whatever.

It is in their ear when they are at the gym. It is very difficult to get away from that. There is another piece here, which I had not really thought through, which is that in a way, we are all complicit. I make a comment about my husband not knowing what time to collect the children.

An unfair comment.

I might ask where all the good men are, and a colleague of mine says, "well actually, we are right here but we are not allowed to speak." There are small things we can do and there are big things that we can do. The work of our colleagues from DCU is absolutely incredible but I also think there is a larger blanket of work that all of us can do, which is not to be complicit in the polarisation of gendering everything, or seeing in black and white, this is good and this is bad.

It finds wedge issues. People put the material online and then the algorithm will send users straight to it. I would be worried about the long-term impact. I saw it in the beginning. The first couple of people who talked to me about 5G were about the same age as me. I thought they were probably a certain cohort that took too many E tablets in the 90s. That changed, I do not mean in relation to that issue but with other issues, as the material permeated. All they needed was that small grain of truth and then it was just reinforcement.

Young people also have something to combat, they need a different example, something else. If they are being faced with that all the time, hearing or seeing it everywhere----

Not just young people either.

They need some other thing, whether it is our prosocial work, or for the other people in their lives to show them, to be open and have those conversations with them, to say maybe what they heard is not correct and show them another person who does not fit the thing that they saw online.

That can be done in youth work and everything. I get it.

I think it can be done everywhere.

We cannot leave it up to ourselves and those people to do great work. We literally need to put manners on these groups.

It needs to be by design. Think of how much we know about designing technology. Let us use that for good.

That is already being done. Why are we ceding ground to the likes of Andrew Tate? We do need to talk about it to call it out but then we need to give children alternatives. Who else have I got to look out for? There are so many fantastic campaigns. I am involved in another one called "tackle your feelings" through Ruby Players Ireland. That does fantastic work in terms of promoting positive male role models. Everyone should see some of the recent interviews with Caelan Doris from the Irish rugby team, who has talked really openly about mental health, accessing mental health services and getting support. We need to be talking about the Caelan Dorises. We need to be talking about the Netflix series with Andrew Porter, talking about his mental health, and all the great female rugby players who talk about it. That is what we need to draw attention to, so kids see that they are role models not just in terms of what they do on the field, but how they manage feelings and emotions. We need to think about whether we are giving equal time to championing positive role models who are living it, as much as we are talking about Andrew Tate. If we are not, we need to redress that balance.

That brings us back to algorithms and safety by design. If Caelan Doris is a kitten, Andrew Tate is outrage.

There have been so many valuable questions and contributions from our guests. Time goes very fast, but what if we were to meet back again in a year's time? If each of our guests could leave us with one piece of work, what would it be? We all know about section 30 now and we will be having a good look at it straight away. Leaving that aside, what would they each like to see us get done in the next year? That would be a good lightning rod to work towards. I will start with Professor O'Higgins Norman and we will work our way around.

If we were to come back in a year's time, I would like to see that very clear steps had been taken by the Government to regulate the creation of content that is potentially harmful to young people. I would like to see those steps having been taken, whether through existing or new legislation. We can see how fast we can move, for example in the recent problem with scramblers. As a country, we can do it. The wind is behind members' sails now. Everyone in the country wants this sorted. Everybody recognises the good and the benefits of social media and technology but we are also very concerned about the harm that exists. It affects a minority of people really, but a significant minority, and as the rest of us all see it, we are all affected by it.

And we are complicit.

For me the big question is whether we have a coherent, integrated policy response at the overall level. There is a huge amount of provision, with all the providers here. Can we make that a coherent, singular, clear statement at a public health level? In the same way we tackled Covid, we should tackle these big-deal issues in an organised and clear way, starting with public health campaigns about healthy Internet use but backing them up with proper support for provision, whether it is via the community and voluntary sector, which integrates some of the things we are talking about today in terms of the programmes Barnardos and the like do, but also to really emphasise the role of youth work.

I would really emphasise that all parents struggle with parenting. It is the hardest job that any of us have here. Think about the parents who are under pressure because they have poverty issues or other issues within their houses, mental health issues of their own or of their children and so on. We must really think about how we can make those messages and supports work for marginalised groups. They are the ones Professor O'Higgins Norman is talking about and that we are looking at most of the time. It is not middle-class parents like us. We muddle through. We must really try to have an integrated policy response starting with public health messaging.

I would like to see this committee recognised as a powerful committee which talks in a really balanced and evidenced way in terms of what it is recommending.

The members as legislators will be familiar with the idea of Pathfinder.

We do this for public health issues. With Pathfinder, interdepartmental co-operation is mandated. Some of the questions today concerned funding from the Department of Health or media. The Departments of Health, justice, education and media have a role to play, but they all operate in silos rather than acting in one coherent way. If a version of Pathfinder dealt with this on a governmental level, it would at least show that Departments were working together towards the same aim.

I thank Mr. Smyth.

We have spoken about many things. On a broader level, we are known as the go-to people and can co-ordinate resources. There are many resources. The resources we provide or direct people to are quality assured and evidence-based, which is important. The Irish Safer Internet Centre recognises the important role we provide in this space.

What about Mr. Moran?

I would give the same answer.

I thank the witnesses. That is really helpful.

Look at how timely the Senator is, Deputy Ó Murchú. The Deputy is always getting picked on.

We will finish with my questions. They will probably be for the University of Galway and PSI. As regards the issues that are coming down the line, I am really alarmed by the growth in AI girlfriends and boyfriends. I am hearing about people getting addicted to AI girlfriends, having to pay up to €200 per month for something that started as free, and becoming totally reliant on them. People are turning towards chatbots for mental health supports. There are positive aspects to that.

We have spoken about Bebo and relationships. Fifteen years ago, people had not really started meeting one another online yet. There may have been some advertisements in newspapers and so on. Now, there are people who have met on Tinder, Bumble or Hinge and have got married. Safety by design in those apps was not, however, built in at the beginning. Now, we can see that, if somebody is a real person, they have a blue tick. We get warnings about how to keep safe when moving from online to offline.

What do we need to be preparing for now for when children will not be meeting people online only? We will probably have driverless cars in this country in the next five years. Will we have robots in people's houses who are boyfriends and girlfriends? How do we prepare, in a well-being sense, for our youth who may only have online relationships or have online relationships and do not know how to behave in the real world when somebody is not allowing them to be dominant in every way?

It is a really tough question. As we said, none of us know what is coming down the line. Taking a step back, the key factors in socialisation still remain strong. Focusing on parents, peers, schools and communities, they still have enormous strength to shape young people's resilience and capacities. We need to double down on strengthening the social ecology that young people live in that gives them the skills and tools to manage whatever comes down the line. We need safe and open spaces, as we talked about, where people can discuss what is happening and how to make sense of it, allied with greater regulation and the built-in safety features that we have discussed.

There is a lot of negativity around this, which is entirely justified, but there is also an opportunity for a strength-based empowerment approach whereby we take back power and see that, as humans, we can deal with what is coming. I agree with Professor Canavan on the public health approach. That will help us to do that and build the kind of interconnections and society we need to make that happen.

This is multifaceted and nuanced. I have a fear that if we outsource everything, we will have no skills left. In our bid or race to be efficient, there is a risk that we are displacing essential developmental experiences. People still need one another and we need to be able to have these social experiences. In an AI world, I want us to not forget our original intelligence, focus on empowering families, schools and parents and invest in mental health. That will change.

Regarding AI boyfriends or girlfriends, the first thing we have to do is be non-judgmental. We look at the behaviour rather than what drives people towards that. People will not have conversations about it because they fear being judged. They will not say where they met a boyfriend or girlfriend or that they have had this experience because there is the same human motivator driving this, namely, a sense of connection. We do not judge them; we validate the importance of them wanting a connection. However, there may be other ways to make a connection. AI may meet a need at a particular point in time, but the most important thing is that we do not stigmatise and judge people because then they will not talk to us about it and we cannot have discussions about alternatives. This goes back to human soft skills. In the midst of all of this, it is still about relationships, communication with parents, supporting teachers, communicating with kids and reflecting on why we are anxious to have these conversations ourselves. It will come back to communication no matter what tools we use.

The witnesses have comments they wish to make. We will go in the same order as the opening statements. There will be two minutes each.

This has been a fascinating discussion and I have really enjoyed participating. I thank everyone. It has been really informative.

We need to remember the power that we have in our private and professional lives and begin to talk positively about this issue in that context. As human beings, we know we can all suffer from having negative biases and pay attention to the worst of what is happening. We need to make sure we do not deny that. At the same time, though, we need to take back our power. That is crucial in terms of how we speak to children and young people and what we model for them as adults in our roles.

If we recognise that we are in an attention economy from a variety of perspectives, we can then think about our power in terms of where we place our attention. We need to ensure that everything we talk about is discussed in the context of evidence. From a Barnardo's point of view, Professor Canavan highlighted something we need to recognise, namely, that particular children are more vulnerable than others. Some children are very fortunate to have very protective and empowered parents who do not have challenges in their lives other than the everyday ones. Those children are likely to have far more accessibility to that informal contact and pleasant way of talking in a very positive way about the Internet and then gradually bring in the challenges. Some children do not have that. It is incumbent on us as policymakers and people who provide services to ensure that we can target things towards the children who do not have that and they have a space to go to.

Dr. Brady raised a point to which we should give more attention, namely, the peer issue and the fact that children are very influenced by their peers and friends. The worst thing children fear is being excluded and isolated. We need to examine how we manage that in terms of how we approach this issue. In a world that focuses so much on the negative, the extent to which can all take our power and roles and lead, as appropriate, will make a difference.

I thank the committee for inviting us here today and thank my colleagues for all of their knowledge and wisdom. This is a complex issue. We are all learning as we grow together. The evidence will continue to inform us. I want to respectfully point out that people will often say that this is impacting on somebody else. While there are definitely young people who are more or less at risk, all people can be at risk. I do not want us to forget that. Every person can potentially be seriously impacted.

This is a double-edged sword. Technology can provide the most extraordinary gifts, opportunities and benefits and drive us in ways that we never imagined. At the same time, with that freedom comes an extraordinary responsibility. Within our gift, we have an extraordinary power and we should use it wisely.

I am very conscious that the Irish Safer Internet Centre is missing two of our members, as the ISPCC and Webwise are also part of our consortium.

A general comment I want to make is that we sometimes confuse this as simply being about online life. It was said earlier that online and offline had merged. We can sometimes go down the rabbit hole of thinking that everything needs to be fixed online. We have spoken about empathy. Empathy exists offline as well. Bullying is online and offline. Mental health challenges are present online and offline. We need to think about it more in this universal and holistic way as well as putting in supports for mental health and so on in every sphere. If we are looking to reduce screen time in any way or make a good balance for it, we need to be putting resources in the offline world for other ways of connecting, such as sport, music and all of these kinds of things. We cannot simply tell young people, or adults, that they need to spend less time online. We need to think about what other things we can do.

We hope that people avail of all of our supports and all of our resources at the Irish Safer Internet Centre before they get to Mr. Moran's Internet hotline. I will reiterate that many people believe that, when we come across illegal content, it cannot be taken down but it can.

And quickly.

They need to access the correct direction. It is up about coming to us, and if we cannot help, we can direct people to where they need to go. It is about knowing that people do have power.

The ISPCC and Webwise were here last week-----

They were indeed.

-----so the Irish Safer Internet Centre has definitely been well represented.

In recent weeks, we have spoken a lot in this room, but also in the Chamber and other rooms, about Hotline.ie and we have been signposting people there, but it is lovely now to know that Mr. Moran is so passionate about it. Now that we have a face to put with the hotline, we can be even more confident that things will get taken down quickly.

I invite DCU's anti-bullying centre to comment.

I thank the committee for having us here today. It has been a very interesting experience for us to reflect with our colleagues from various sectors and academia on the issues we have spoken about today. As has been said by others, we need to remember that, at the heart of all of this, the social processes that underpin individual, organisational and societal life offline also carry over into online. It is blended now. Any solution we have for tackling issues that arise in the online space must also take account of what is happening in the offline space. Misogyny did not just arrive online; it existed offline beforehand. It is important that we take an holistic approach to this.

A big part of this is the role our schools play. They play an amazing role. We have painted a picture today of young people going around with their smart phones in front of their eyes the whole time but right now, as we are talking, there are teachers and special needs assistants, SNAs, in schools all over Ireland helping children to become themselves and helping them to realise whatever it means to flourish in their lives, such as putting on musicals, doing projects and learning maths, English and everything else. This is going on alongside technology. It is important not to demonise technology or social media but it is important to be responsible for it and to ensure we now move rapidly to a safety-by-design approach to any type of technology that is available to children, young people and all of us.

As Professor O'Higgins Norman says that, it reminds me that I was at a musical in Sancta Maria College in Louisburgh last week, and the blending of online and offline was very evident when I put up a video afterwards to say it was such a fantastic performance. One of the students sent me a direct message thanking me for being there, pointing out where she was in the picture and asking me whether I saw her. It is a beautiful way of a young person being able to contact their TD. This is a positive note to finish on.

I will now go to the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at the University of Galway.

This is about life outside of here. I know it is perhaps not the committee's remit but we have to think about how we support young people in sport, drama and everything, in particular the kids who do not play sport or do these other things. It is about finding ways to back the organisation that deliver these fantastic services, such as soccer, rugby, Gaelic football or whatever it is. They balance and give alternatives to the phone and the screen. This is a very important point. It is a little bit away from what we are about but it is fundamental and we need to keep this message up there.

I would say that a public health approach involving the regulatory area is very important. We need to start with some public health messaging that is very accessible and everybody knows about. I am not aware of an awful lot of what has being spoken about here, and I am pretty in tune. I keep a good eye on things, but it is very hard. It is about finding ways. We have the technology to do this.

We need to emphasise supporting parents, have evidence-based approaches, and build evidence on how to best support parents, particularly in the technological area. We need to support and keep supporting youth work providers, particularly in informal and non-formal education. Formal education can do an awful lot but some kids tune out or are not there. There is something about reaching these children and young people and reinforcing the messages they get in school. That is very important.

This is a little bit away from what we are about today, but what are we doing about what we want by way of pro-social behaviour? What are we doing to emphasise empathy, empathy provision and teaching in an online context, and strengthening the capacity of these platforms to be empathy supporting rather than empathy reducing?

On behalf of the committee, I thank all of the witnesses for being here today. We have all learned a lot. It has been a very balanced and engaging discussion and I thank the witnesses for it. We will be engaging with youth as part of our all of our modules and especially for this module.