We have received apologies from Senator Rónán Mullen. This is the last public meeting of this year. We are meeting to engage with the Young Voices Programme and the National Youth Council of Ireland on the young voices consultation report entitled, Connecting EU with Youth. This report formed part of the 11th cycle of EU youth dialogue. To assist us in our consideration, I welcome the representatives of the Young Voices programme, who are here with us today. They are Mr. Franek Dobronski, Mr. Leo Galvin, Ms Aisha Alameen Betro, Ms Aisling Maloney and Mr. Billy Campbell. I also acknowledge Ms Jean-Marie Cullen, who is here as well. I will invite her to contribute first in just a second. Ms Cullen is the international affairs manager with the National Youth Council of Ireland.

I briefly met the group outside and one of the things I said, which I believe very strongly, is that young Europeans, the young people within the European Union, represent the future of the Union. They are a hugely important part of it. Their participation in the European Union will also form the future of the EU. It is critical to the EU's future that we have engaged people who acknowledge and respect the purpose of the European Union and are also willing to contribute to it at every level. That is hugely important.

Today gives us an opportunity, as members and public representatives, not just to explore the issues that are important to the witnesses, but also to explore the wider policy challenges around youth participation in the European Union. I am very grateful to the witnesses for coming in. I look forward to what they have to tell us about the challenges they face in terms of European Union engagement and the possibilities that exist for future youth engagement. I ask Ms Cullen to say a few words before we start.

I thank the Chair and committee members for inviting us today and helping with our remit in the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, of amplifying the youth voice. The National Youth Council of Ireland’s role in this youth participation initiative, the EU youth dialogue, Young Voices, is to work together with the youth work sector to make sure that young people from diverse backgrounds are represented and to work with youth workers to bring young people who are most marginalised into the conversations about Europe.

The young people here represent some of the 38,000 young people around Europe who were involved in this consultation. NYCI supports young people and provides the scaffolding for them to have exploration initiatives and consultation activities, and also, most importantly, it brings them together with decision-makers to talk about implementation of those recommendations that have come through consultation. The young people set the agenda. They have come up with the EU youth goals. One of the topics, as the Cathaoirleach discussed, is Connecting EU with Youth. It is a very important and relevant topic, which the young people will discuss further, because Ireland is hosting the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2026, but also because there are new EU programmes on the way for 2028, along with a new EU youth strategy. Young people really want to have the opportunity to influence those very important initiatives.

I thank Ms Cullen. Before I call the witnesses to make their opening statements, I am obliged to give a notice about privilege and what we can and cannot do. First, witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if a witness’s statement is potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, he or she will be directed to discontinue his or her remarks. It is imperative that witnesses comply with any such direction. I am sure that will not be a problem.

As we do not have anybody online, it is not necessary to issue a warning about participation online. Members are aware that they are also bound by the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside of the Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way to make him or her identifiable.

That is the legal bit over with. The five-minute period for opening statements will be divided between Ms Maloney and Ms Betro.

I understand birthday congratulations are in order for both of you, which I do not think has ever happened before. Happy birthday to you both. I invite Ms Maloney to start the opening statement.

I thank the Cathaoirleach. Young people are telling us something very clearly through the Young Voices consultations: Europe’s response to global conflicts is increasingly feeling inconsistent with the values it was founded upon, and that inconsistency is leading to a real loss of hope. In the consultations, conversations and online interactions, young people have repeatedly expressed a deep sense of concern about the growing disconnect between the EU’s stated commitments to dignity, democracy, equality and justice and how those values are reflected in our external actions, particularly in relation to war, militarisation and humanitarian crises.

Our report covers a few topics. Aisha will highlight the value of European programmes and her concerns around new proposals on the new EU youth programmes. The recommendation I want to highlight today comes under Youth Goal No. 1: Connecting the EU with Youth, and it focuses on global peace and security. If we want young people to feel genuine belonging within the European project, then values cannot be something the EU only says - they must be something the EU lives, especially when human lives are at risk.

From our report, trust in the European institutions is currently at 45%. To rebuild trust and legitimacy, young people are asking for structured opportunities to analyse these global issues, to contribute to policy discussions and to hold institutions accountable to the values they proclaim. That is why we are calling for an EU-wide youth consultation on peace, security and defence, recognising that in a rapidly militarising world, young people must have a meaningful say in how Europe responds.

I want to stress that this is not about young people seeking symbolic participation. Under the EU youth dialogue, we are not here simply to take part in discussions. We are here to interrogate them and to ensure the EU lives up to its founding principles. Having worked on youth, peace and security at both EU and UN level, I can say the concerns expressed in Young Voices strongly mirror what young people from other regions are saying too - we want the EU to actively live its values, not only articulate them. For young people, our sense of belonging to the EU will depend on seeing consistency between European values and European actions, and on being invited into genuine dialogue about the future of peace, justice and security in Europe and beyond.

My experience with the European Solidarity Corps, ESC, has shown me how invisible EU support can be, even when it is as practical as our work on cardiac arrest awareness. I cannot count the number of times someone, especially a young person, has said to us, "Wait, the European Commission funds you?". People are genuinely surprised that EU funding backs young volunteers teaching lifesaving skills in north Dublin. That reaction says something important. On an island like Ireland, we are physically distanced from the European mainland, but that distance should never become a disconnect between young people and the EU. EU programmes like the European Solidarity Corps are often the first, and sometimes the only, place where young people can visibly feel Europe’s impact on their real lives.

Our first ESC project involved five young people, and I was the only one with any previous youth work experience. For the others, this was their first step into youth participation, but because I had developed the structure and scaffolding of youth participation in my youth services and we now had the ESC funding and support, they were able to step into meaningful roles, delivering cardiac arrest awareness, engaging with local organisations, speaking with political representatives and building something with national reach from a regional base. The impact was not abstract. We were sharing information that can literally save lives. It was young people leading that work, and it mattered. Through the AED Initiative, we have already supported the installation of community access defibrillators, trained dozens of residents and reached hundreds more through awareness campaigns, all shaped and delivered by young volunteers. This is why early access to volunteering, combined with practical supports like youth work infrastructure and EU funding, is essential. Without the ESC, those young volunteers would never have had a pathway to participate, learn or give back. The ESC did not just fund activities; it developed active citizens who are now connected to our local community and the EU.

The multi-annual financial framework, MFF, proposed to begin in 2028 has no dedicated youth chapter, with no distinction for the European Solidarity Corps. Without this support and distinction, young people are competing against institutions and professionals whose full-time jobs are to write applications and execute programmes and reports. My ask today is clear; it is to protect and champion funding for the EU youth programme, especially the ESC. We cannot allow physical distance from Europe to become a democratic distance for young people. The European Solidarity Corps is a programme that closes that gap. It turns European values into lived experiences, especially for young people who may never otherwise see Europe reflected in their communities.

As a young person, and as young people across Ireland have consistently said in the EU youth dialogue, we want regular engagement with this committee. We want to share what works, what does not and how EU support is transforming our communities, sometimes in lifesaving ways. The ESC has been a lifeline not just for our project but for our development as active citizens. When you invest in young people, trust them and give them real resources, the results are extraordinary, and sometimes they help save lives. I thank the committee.

I will open the meeting to members. As I explained outside, each member will have five minutes for questions and answers.

Go raibh maith agaibh. Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe. It is always good to see anybody who is engaged in any way in the political process, particularly young people. I do not know what it was that was said exactly, but it was something about speaking directly to the European Commission. I am surprised anyone knew what the European Commission was. That is half the problem in the sense that there is a distance that Europe has from its citizens. We can see the issues we have with the distance from politics in general. I do not think we would have any issue in saying we all have worries about the MFF and possible cuts, and even in relation to some of the journey that Europe is going to take.

If I am talking in general about where politics is, and the European Union in particular, we have all seen that the world has gone in some very mad places. The online world is particularly bad. I expect the witnesses all have classmates who have to some degree succumbed to not necessarily positive messages. That involves many issues, extending from migration to whatever else. Again, this probably creates an added distance from the European Union for a lot of people. Will the witnesses talk about where their cohort and age group are in relation to politics and the European Union and whether that issue has become worse in the last while?

My name is Franek Dobronski and I am a National Youth Council of Ireland representative on the National Youth Assembly of Ireland. To tackle the question the Deputy asked about where things stand in relation to politics as a whole in schools and third level institutions, I think it is not being discussed enough. Obviously, it is discussed in the subject of history in school at second level, but not in third level. These programmes are a perfect opportunity for young people to engage with European politics and active citizenship in their communities and at the national, local and international levels. We want to emphasise, and I think it will be discussed later, is the importance of having these programmes separated into their own categories and focused individually. Obviously, it is important that the volunteering part of the Erasmus+ programme is funded on its own. It is the same with the European Solidarity Corps, which Aisha can develop further. We want to emphasise that these programmes are a fantastic opportunity for young people to have that experience and gain knowledge of youth politics at the national, European and international levels.

How do we get engagement with more people? Diversity was mentioned but there will be a huge cohort of people who will not engage in politics or with these programmes. There is a bigger piece of work required to rectify that.

I want to speak to that point, starting with how young people feel. Young people nowadays are more connected to politics than ever. We see this especially through the digital advocacy and politicism of young people. As the Deputy said, the perspectives of young people can feel quite negative. This is where these programmes come in. It is that beacon of hope. This is where youth work and youth services, locally, regionally, nationally and up to international engagement, are really important.

On the aspect of diversity, our project is based in Balbriggan. It started off in Balbriggan, which is the youngest and most diverse town in Ireland. We know what it looks like to engage diverse young people. It means meeting them where they are and involving them in this is actually involving them in youth work.

I agree, but I would say that "diverse" can be a lot of things.

Yes.

I find an awful lot of these programmes do not necessarily get out to those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Politics in general fails to do this so it is about how we address it. It is easier said than done.

I will jump in here. Deputy Ó Murchú is asking how we engage people on this topic. How do we engage them with history and geography? We educate them in school. We can talk about CSPE reform all day long but we also have to combine formal education with non-formal education. I am from a low-income background. I am from a working-class background. Neither of my parents went to university and I had no connection to the political sphere before entering through organisations such as the NYCI. I have a background in youth work because of my involvement outside of school. I had an interest and that is how I got involved. We need to provide more opportunities for young people to engage.

That is a hell of a sell. Do you wish to speak, Leo?

Aisling has encapsulated it. What I was going to say is that a lot of the practice we have developed, especially in youth work, to engage young people coming from marginalised backgrounds is through innovation. These programmes provide a lot of flexibility for moving around and engaging with these young people. In the youth dialogue we make active and conscious efforts to identify who we are missing in consultations. These are the people we focus on and try to work with, especially when we return in the next cycle or as we continue. We have a continuous reflective exercise in our processes with the youth dialogue and also beyond it. Across the youth work sector we see youth workers respond directly to the needs of young people. They find funding programmes they can move around and assess because they are reaching these issues much earlier than we would see policy move. They need flexible funding to try to find avenues to get to it. Erasmus+ is one way because a lot of its thematic focus is very much on the likes of citizenship, which the EU hopes to turn into a basic skill. The focus on citizenship, and the ability to pivot and turn on these thematic areas rather than focusing so heavily on details, is what makes these programmes very valuable.

I thank the witnesses for joining us today. I commend them on the work they are doing. As my colleague has outlined, it is great to see young people involved in any form of politics. It is definitely not something we see enough of. I have been involved in politics since I was 16 or 17 and I know the importance of it. I found, and I think it is still very much true, that when we look at trying to engage young people in politics the issue is often that those who are there speak at them rather than to them. How do the witnesses think the dialogue, narrative and level of communication can be improved? Well done on the reporting but it is about getting the point across and improving the dialogue. It is important that all of us as members leave today knowing exactly what the aims and goals of the witnesses are and how we can improve communication.

I share the concerns about the MFF and the lack of youth funding that is outlined, particularly when we look at the good work done under the funding until now. The witnesses have spoken a bit about Erasmus+ and it is an incredibly important programme. In terms of what work we can do in secondary schools to bring it closer to people, those aged 15, 16 and 17 are heading towards voting age and it is so important that they are engaged, not only with national politics but also with European politics. We will have a really good opportunity next year, insofar as Ireland is hosting the EU Council Presidency. What would the witnesses' suggestions be for this in terms of youth engagement? What proposals or ideas do they have and what are they putting forward? There was public consultation on this which closed last Friday and I hope they made a submission.

Yes, and we consulted with young people on it, including the Young Voices EU dialogue.

With regard to proposals on how to improve youth engagement with politics, it comes back to what I said earlier about starting off in schools. It is great that CSPE is being looked at, and that politics and society has been introduced as a subject on the leaving certificate curriculum, but there is a gap between when students finish CSPE at junior certificate when they are 15 and starting to vote when they are 18. Lowering the voting age to 16 is something the NYCI has been pushing for years. It has been pushed down the hill again. Hopefully, in the next few years, we might see some progress happening on this but, in the meantime, there really needs to be more push on mandatory civic education for our children in schools, especially to fill in the gap between junior cycle and senior cycle, between when students get the initial education and when they go into a voting station for the first time.

My formal education on citizenship and democracy finished with CSPE. The first time I voted was during the most recent local elections and my first general election was this year. There was a five- or six-year gap between when I formally learned about how the system worked and when I entered the system for the first time as a young person voting. There is something that needs to be filled in schools but there should also be investment in youth work and non-formal education. The gap that is not being met in schools now is being filled by youth work. If I had not gone to my youth club when I was 14 for the first time, I would not have learned about the sustainable development goals and I would not have entered other youth organisations and continued this engagement through my higher level education. I would not be sitting in this room today if I had not entered that youth club for the first time. I just wanted to go somewhere after school. It is very important to invest in these spaces for young people so that if they want to learn outside of school, and learn more about these topics and engage further with them, they have the space to do it.

It is at grassroots level. School is a great place to start but not everyone stays in school and not everyone is happy at school. Youth services have been a gateway for every young person because youth workers are trained to have a superb level of engagement with young people and meet them where they are. Unfortunately, this does not occur in schools. The education can be passed through a youth service. I have done the leadership for life module through Foróige. This is all about active citizenship and teaching people how to be an active citizen in their home community and the power they have as a young person. It is delivered through non-formal education but participants graduate from the University of Galway, which is a formal recognition of the work and the education delivered through youth services. I echo Aisling's point that there is a gap but I believe there should be a mixture of non-formal and formal education. Youth workers have a superb power or magic in engaging with young people.

I will come in on the EU Presidency side of things. I am working on the European steering group alongside Dean Murray, who is supporting my participation, and the other youth delegates who, hopefully, will join us. Our job will be to steer the youth elements of the youth dialogue. I am sorry; that sounds terrible. We will steer the thematic focus of the dialogue for the six months that Ireland will be in charge. We will run a youth conference in Ireland. We will run the ministerial meeting when it gets to Brussels during that period. We will present ideas on the thematic focus at that meeting and we are still trying to consult on them. This will be the focus of the NYCI. We will not be running the logistics side of things; we will be running the ideas. We will be especially looking to involve young people coming up with ideas. We will be trying to cast as wide a net as possible and involve young people in different aspects of it. The youth goal we have picked is on information and constructive dialogue. This has been informed by young people and it was approved recently by the Minister. We will be moving forward with this focus for a year and a half of the dialogue under a trio of Presidencies. It was detailed in the briefing document.

I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee. It would be remiss of me not to give a shout-out to Aisha, who is in here more than some politicians at this point. I can confirm she has put this scaffolding in place for young people taking leadership on projects from her initiative in Balbriggan.

I have a number of questions. One of my earliest memories is my father telling me we were all Europeans now when we were going over to my granny's. I was four or five years of age and I had no idea what it meant. I have always been a big fan of the EU. I agree that the things Europe does well quite often do not get talked about or championed. We see it with outcomes such as Brexit, where the UK has lost access to the Single Market. In my opinion access to the Single Market is the most fundamentally important thing for the future of Ireland, more than anything else. However, it is taken for granted to some degree. I used to work in a secondary school and we celebrated Europe Day every year.

We did that every year but that was as much down to me and Ms Irwin, the German teacher, who were fan girls and fan boys of the EU, doing it off our own bat. I never had Ms Irwin as a teacher in school but she was awesome. I doubt that is the same in all schools.

Feel free to focus on any of the questions. It was mentioned that only 45% of people surveyed have a positive interpretation of EU institutions, which I find quite disappointing. Can the witnesses talk to me more about the media they consume, which I assume is different from the media that we consume, and the general feeling around the European Union? There is a confused feeling according to others. The opening statement mentioned the increasing militarisation of Europe, which will have an impact on the MFF. I am looking for the witnesses' opinion. There is no right or wrong answer to that. Will the witnesses talk to me more about that? Aisling mentioned values that Europe is supposed to uphold that we are not living up to. Could she talk more specifically about which values she thinks the Union is letting us down on?

I will start with the reputation of EU institutions among young people. Especially after Brexit, Irish young people have seen a dramatic change in our perspectives. Sometimes, the positives are real, such as the British queue at the airport, and you have your Irish passport and are able to whizz by. We recognise in a potentially humorous way the positives of the European institutions. The positive perspectives can typically be more blatantly stated by those who are already involved in youth services or in EU programmes, such as the EU youth dialogue, where the touch of the EU is real. I say that as someone who is currently in her second year of a European Solidarity Corps project, where I can feel the impact of the European Union on me.

However, there seems to be a lot of negativity. On the global peace and security front, many young people are feeling quite disheartened. I will leave that to Aisling and others to respond to. With regard to social media, algorithms on social media typically tend to promote negativity and hate, with much toxic content being pushed. Those are not EU companies. They will push whatever brings them more views. Unfortunately, young people are vulnerable to the excessive consumption of that content, which can, and unfortunately does, taint the reputation of EU institutions with young people. I will go back to the point that education and information is quite important. Quality information is extremely important, especially with young people who are still in the process of formulating an opinion.

The interaction of young people with institutions can also be chalked up a little to negative experiences. If you have an interaction with an EU institution, is it positive or negative? For many young people, it really depends on where you get that first interaction and end up entering that sphere. Many young people, especially if they are coming from the youth side, may have a more positive experience of it. If they are entering it on their own, it can be quite daunting, not just because it is scary to go out into the EU, but also because of the governance burden. Walking into any programme or project will have hundreds of pages of paperwork that have to be filled out. If we are talking about the European Solidarity Corps, one of the key points of direct interaction, where you can have the institution directly funding a small group of young people, the sheer governance burden of that alone is massive. Those young people have to fill out hundreds of pages for the applications. They have to keep up with much of the governance.

Much of the support we see there comes from the youth sector. Léargas, our national agency, is an amazing group of people which supports young people through their applications and as they are running projects. Many of them would come from the youth sector. Many of the people who are hired in the likes of Léargas have been working as youth workers, supporting youth work or different areas like that. There is a wide reach where the youth work sector, and the youth sector more broadly, are feeding into different sectors and supporting or interfacing with that.

Looking at the youth side, which is what I am familiar with, when we wrote our Erasmus+ application for a youth participation activity, it was 80 or so pages long. We had to go through the details of that. We had staff members supporting us the whole way but it was still a massive document to work through. Cutting that down and improving those experiences would be one way to improve those systems, but the first point of interaction, where you meet the EU, shapes your opinion of it going forward. It even goes into the likes of schools, with how those young people see it or are introduced to it.

Going back to the topic of actions and values, I was recently at a meeting of the President of the European Commission supervisory board, where we talked about social media. We talked about the benefits of social media but also the risks when it comes to all these algorithms pushing certain content into young people's feeds. That ties into what the guys were saying about young people's perceptions of the EU being shaped online and externally, because when young people have these targeted portrayals of the EU, then they associate crises like the housing crisis, cost-of-living crisis and the struggles of their day-to-day living with the EU, which is easy for them to blame because it is so distant from them. It is a far-off entity that does not seem to care about their everyday lives when in actuality it does, but we only understand that because we are in both spaces.

On the rise of extremism across Europe, we have not faced it in Ireland too much compared with some other countries. Last year, when we were at a youth event for one of the EU institutions, Muslim youth were being targeted by extremist actors in the EU buildings and nothing was really done at the time to protect them. There was much talk afterwards about what could be done in the future, but whether that is enough to protect this from happening again, we do not know for sure.

On spaces, it is not just the youth sector that is affected by this. No matter what topic you are working on as a young person, everyone is finding it harder to get funding. Everyone is finding it harder to even get spaces to meet and organise, and even have dialogues together. What young people want to see from the EU and to build that 45% trust back up to 100% is for the EU to take action on these things to make sure that we can continue to engage together and have conversations, and that we are supported in doing so and have the funding and resources to make these processes happen.

I have a preliminary question which may take up the whole debate, but we will get back to that in the second round. The witnesses can take this as me being Paul Gogarty, Independent TD for Dublin Mid-West, or János Bóka, the Hungarian EU Minister. Either way, why do the witnesses believe, regarding the survey that was done, that it found that 46% of those surveyed identified as homosexual or bisexual, 8% preferred not to say, and 1% did not know, which suggests 48% heterosexual-identifying? Some 40% of those surveyed identified as coming from a minority ethnic background. Any surveys that have been done of young people suggest that it might be 11% to 12% LGBT, and the latest survey suggested that ethnic minorities account for 25% of the population at most, and in 2017, it was 17%. In that context, why do the witnesses think the respondents show a disproportionate number of LGBT and ethnic minority responses compared with the population in general?

I may take this question as slightly more logistical. Young people, at least in my experience, go to places where they are welcomed or to places where they are interacted with. For me, this would be a youth space. This is where we have the youth sector, where young people are given the place to exist, which I note is significantly lacking in Irish society. We have a very poor state of third spaces where young people can just exist on their own. Where spaces are found, many of the projects that are now coming out of the Government and funding lines that we find in youth work support working with target groups or specific groups, and those are places where they are welcomed. I found myself particularly welcomed in the LGBTQ+ youth cafés in Blanchardstown. That is where I found my group of people and where I was happy to engage. I might defer the question to some of my other colleagues, maybe Jean-Marie.

Just briefly, because I have other questions on foot of that.

In regard to the consultations we did, in Young Voices we try to work with young people from diverse backgrounds and also young people who might not have an opportunity to come into these spaces today or would not want to. We would go to them. We make sure that we have the voices of young people from minority ethnic backgrounds who would not necessarily get an opportunity to go to events. We would go to them.

Ms Cullen would say it is more the people who are engaging rather than the other elements of the population not being interested, as such. I am asking whether the reason is the higher number engaging with the youth council, as opposed to it being people who are not LGBT or from ethnic minorities not bothering to make the responses.

It was not a survey. We would go to do events with the young people in their youth work setting.

I thank Ms Cullen. Everything that has been said is valid and I agree with her. I am not trying to use it as a stick; I am actually trying to use it to our advantage. Basically, the European Union, as Ms Cullen knows, is a diverse entity. Germans have their historical embarrassment over the Holocaust. The Danes rescued Danish Jews. We had the Danish ambassador in here before and we said that if Denmark is such a friend of Israel and Israel appreciates the work it did, why is not going heavier with regard to the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza? Europe is a diverse constituency. It is made up of so many different countries with different backgrounds. I will give the reason I am asking that particular question. How would the witnesses counter the Hungarians saying this is just another woke presentation from LGBT and ethnic minorities, as opposed to a valid statement that represents European young people in general? Let us take Hungary as an example. What sorts of meetings have there been? I presume the witnesses have had meetings with other EU member states. What sort of feedback have they been getting from their Hungarian counterparts with regard to supports they might need in a European context? The current government in Hungary is quite oppressive in regard to LGBT issues, for example.

Young people in Hungary had an EU youth conference. We had three young people from the Young Voices EU dialogue attend the conference. The topic they discussed was inclusion, particularly around young people from rural backgrounds. We have engagement with Young Voices equivalents all over Europe in the EU youth dialogue. There are 38,000 young people engaged in the wider European consultation, in which we had over 350 young people. There were events anyone could come to but also events where we would target young people and go to where they are at.

I am conscious of time. I will be asking the witnesses later how they best think we could get Europe back to its original values. They might think about that and I will ask in a while.

I welcome the witnesses. It is good to listen to a youth perspective on EU policy. That is very important.

I have two questions. First, what actions would help close the gap between EU values and young people's lived experience? Second, how can Ireland ensure the voices of young people shape the next EU strategy beyond 2027?

I will start off with closing the gap. You have to make it local. You have to make access to the EU easy and local. It has to be accessible to young people across Ireland and it has to look at young people from rural and urban backgrounds, with higher and lower socio-economic status and with differing educational levels. You have to make it easy to meet the young person where he or she is at. As everything is connected to the EU at the end of the day, every single person in this country benefits in one way, shape or form from the European Union. We have to make that connection local and visible.

There are already actions that make that local and accessible but, unfortunately, most young people do not find it accessible. That is due to a variety of factors. It is up to us, in the best way we can, to make it accessible.

I will quickly jump in on the accessibility aspect. I think a lot of people's approach, even when they are given an opportunity to get involved in the EU through the programmes and even if their youth services tells them from above, is based on their initial interpretation from schools or second or third level institutions. It was mentioned earlier that the EU seems very inaccessible, at first glance, to a lot of young people, as it was to me. What helps break the narrative is the way the information is portrayed to us initially. For example, as regards using social media as a medium of communication, if, say, a youth centre portrays an EU opportunity to a young person or some information is posted in a very complex way or in a way that does not seem very friendly or which uses heavy language that is not known by everyone, that is an immediate turn-off for a young person or anyone looking at it. Making sure the language is easy to understand and visually appealing so that people will get involved and give it a try is also very important to any young person, and even to people who are not young. Making sure it is visually accessible at first glance and using language and proper vocabulary are very important. Every aspect you can think of has to be easy to access and understand if people are going to engage with it.

Through our consultations, we figured out that the number of young people who find a strong connection to the EU is very low. To combat this, the Irish Presidency has a great opportunity to integrate the EU into the daily lives of young people more and to make it more central for young Irish people. Second, between 80% and 93% of young people said in our consultations that they value all EU values. The Irish Presidency can, therefore, bring EU values into the picture and make them central to the discussion. It is very clear from working with young people around the country that while, unfortunately, they do not feel as connected to the EU, when they do figure the EU out, they feel a strong, positive connection to its values. Using the Presidency as a stage to bring these values into a discussion with young people is imperative.

I thank the witnesses for taking the time to come into us. I work very closely with the student councils in my constituency. It is really interesting. Every year, we have a programme called the youth forum. We bring all the secondary schools, be it the student council or students who want to participate, and we let them lead the debate for the morning on the issues that concern them. Last year, the big issue was the "third space" and understanding it. We even had the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, there that day. Third space kept coming up. At a certain point, we asked, "What is the third space?". We need a clear definition of the third space to help local authorities because it is something that may be funded by the Government or a youth service. I ask the witnesses to define the third space for me.

My next question will probably take us into the second round. Considering the low voter turnout among young people, will each of the witnesses give me one good reason we should let young people have the vote at 16?

On defining third spaces, I will try to be quick because I do not particularly know how to define it, if I am honest. To me, it is a space where a young person does not necessarily have to pay to be. It is a space a young person can go to. I would consider a library something quite similar to it.

A youth club.

Yes, a youth club is an especially good example. Youth clubs and youth spaces typically. A really good example is in Donegal where there is a wonderful place called Elevate 55. It is a loft. Essentially, it is the top floor of a building and young people can drop in and sit, have fun, play pool and be there for a few hours. They do not have access to it all the time but they have youth workers there if anything comes up and the young people want to talk to somebody, run a programme or go to the cinema. They can go there and shape how they want to do things and what they want to do. That is a really good example. Third spaces in general are very much a space to exist, either with supervision or without it, where young people can kind of be.

In regard to engaging young people with the voting process and why we should have the vote, there are so many reasons that the Deputy may have to come back to me on it. The big reason for me, however, is that young people have access to such a level of knowledge of what is going on today that it would just make sense.

They have opinions on a variety of different topics that are political but they may not necessarily connect them with politics. There may be an educational component there. They are much more connected than previous generations. They are constantly hooked into the Internet because that it how we have shaped our society. That is what we have done and how we have legislated. That is how we have allowed companies to go about it. Young people are very informed and care about what is going on. That is one of many reasons that they should be allowed to vote.

I will jump in to share my reason. I would have the voting age lowered to 16 because it is a fantastic opportunity to have a wider demographic involved in voting and to increase public participation in politics. Many people argue that 16-year-olds are not mature enough and do not yet have the life experience. The best way to give them that life experience and take an initial step towards that is by giving them the vote.

In schools, we talk a bit about politics in history and other subjects. Some schools offer a politics and society course for the leaving certificate, which is great and another step. Many schools, however, do not. Young people, especially those of my age, through social media and other platforms of information, have access to a lot of information and know what is happening on a day-to-day basis. As Leo said, we have access to information. We are more informed than any previous generation. Why should we not be able to vote? We have the platforms to do it. Social media is probably the biggest platform. There are constant feeds of information. We are able to follow politicians on their social media platforms and be informed about what they are doing. That is a fantastic way for people locally, including the committee members' constituents and young people, to know what is happening. That did not exist a few years ago. There are opportunities and platforms, especially through social media, for us to be informed. We are informed and deserve the vote.

I will keep it topical. When we earlier discussed why young people should have the vote, many of my reasons related to political information regarding the EU and young people, and how to integrate the information into schools. My experience in school was that many people started talking about politics and asking others what they knew about political candidates when the local elections come around when I was in sixth year and students were turning 18. Many people's first experience of doing political research, trying to understand their political opinions and exploring that space is when they get the ability to vote. By dialling back the voting age to 16, we would be giving more time to those in school and young people in general to be able to formulate political opinions and bring them into this space, which will potentially open more avenues through education for young people to learn about the EU.

My reason is that we would not be the first country to reduce the voting age. Many of our European counterparts have already lowered the voting age to 16. The most recent was Cyprus, which made the change because the research has already shown that if the voting age is lowered to 16, when young people are in school and have the learning environment around them, they can build a good habit of voting for life. If you start voting while in education, you can start straightaway and vote for the rest of your life. If you are learning about voting and democracy at the age of 16 and do not vote until you are 21, you are not as tied in, do not have as much of a connection and might ask, "Why should I?" It then gets harder as you go through your life to want to vote and to be able to educate yourself as to how to vote. I voted for the first time at 21 and do not think I would have approached it any differently when I was 16. I would still have looked online to find out about the different candidates in my area. I would have researched the different parties. The methods I used at 21 were the same ones I would have used at 16. The only difference was that I was could not go into my CSPE class and ask my teacher if what I was doing was right or if there was a better way I could be doing it. I did not have that direct access to an educator to help me to navigate the process.

Another reason that has not been brought up is that young people can already have a lot of responsibility at the age of 16. They have the choice to get a licence to drive a tractor. They can drop out of school. They can work jobs and pay taxes. Why should we not also give them the trust and responsibility to vote if we are entrusting them with all these other responsibilities?

I just wrote down that a third space is a physical space that young people can go to, if they personally wish to, where they feel safe to exist, socialise, learn, develop and influence.

My reason for wanting to lower the voting age to 16 is similar to the reasons shared by my colleagues. We are in the process of developing and becoming adults. We are technically adults in respect of healthcare decisions and whatnot. This committee has recognised that young people have the power of influence and deserve to be recognised for the influence they have. Backing that up is lowering the age of voting to 16.

That young people want the vote has come up at every consultation we have had.

It has arisen at every National Youth Assembly of Ireland participation. At National Youth Assembly meetings on rural youth, AI and gender equality, reducing the voting age to 16 came up. Those reports are available online. It is not just the NYCI pushing it.

I will now ask a few questions. In your opening statement, Aisling, you referred to not only discussing but interrogating and living European Union values. How do you all feel that is going, particularly at European Union level? How do you feel we are respecting the values of the European Union?

I think that at times we are sacrificing young people and those who are vulnerable when it comes to those values. The values of the European Union should be respected with regard to each and every citizen. Vulnerable citizens are not having their values respected. This is a time when there is so much influence and it seems that the world revolves around money and the economy. At a national level, we seem to be very much inclined to talk constantly about the economy or bring all topics back to the financial impact they may have. The values of the EU have been expressed in treaties multiple times. They are expected not to waver. Conversation in the hemisphere has wavered, unfortunately. Members of the European Parliament, as well as the Council of Ministers and the Commission, say they believe in EU values but make speeches that are completely contra-indicative.

Can you give me an example?

There was a vote today on safe abortions in the EU Parliament. It has been a fight and a half to access safe abortions for members of the European Parliament. This was not passing legislation that would ensure that access. It was not implementing legislation that would make such access mandatory in any state. As long as we say that we believe in human rights, the first part of that is the right to life. Women and others who wish to access abortions should be able to.

Does anybody else want to come in on that point?

I will come in to speak around the points I brought up earlier about democratic backsliding, the rise of extremism and the treatment of civic spaces across Europe, as well as the loss of funding opportunities, especially in the youth sector. From a young person's perspective, as I said earlier, there is a loss of hope. There are so many problems out there. For a young person in rural Ireland looking at everything happening in Brussels and Strasbourg, I ask what I can actually do to influence the situation. We are very lucky young people. We have been to the EU institutions and engaged directly with people such as Ursula von der Leyen and Roberta Metsola. We have access to those spaces but many young people do not. For us, it is about finding ways for us and the EU to connect. Aisha spoke earlier about getting back to a local level. We must bring European values to the local level so that whether you are in Galway, Kerry, Waterford or the midlands in Offaly, you feel a European citizen as much as an Irish citizen. I do not feel that enough is being done. I know there is a huge disconnect because we are not on the mainland. We are an island. There are difficulties there, especially around travel to and fro. There needs to be more of an emphasis on Ireland and other island countries, such as Malta, to ensure we feel as much a part of the European Union as countries such as Germany and France.

This is a selfish question. I think there is a disconnect between all politicians and young people. Where young people are not yet registered to vote, we do not know they exist. At least if you are on the register, we know you exist. How can politicians reach young people? What is the best way to do it?

The best way is to have robust youth participation mechanisms, first and foremost. We are seeing them piloted across the EU and Europe, more broadly. We are seeing mechanisms for creation, co-creation and youth-led spaces. That is the best approach. We need to be looking to not just consult young people. When it comes to looking at politicians being very disconnected from young people, I would suggest bringing them in through more structural engagement. We do not need a once-off approach, a matter of chance or something that is a privilege for young people. We need more of a right for young people to be present, have their say on what is going on and be part of that decision-making process.

We can see some examples of it in the likes of the Advisory Council on Youth in the Council of Europe. It is a very positive system for co-creation, where politicians from across the EU as well as young people from across the EU are brought together in the same mechanism to work together and come to decisions.

We can see youth-led mechanisms across the EU as well. There are systems being built to support that, especially inside the EU institutions. For me, the best way to reach young people is a robust youth participation mechanism that really has the mandate to provide young people with the space to have a proper say and an impact and actually be listened to so that their input is not just taken and noted but actually used and they are part of that process. They are not asked and it is done but instead there would be a continuous, structural process of engaging with young people.

Alongside the youth participation structures, it is really important for young people to see politicians as representing them as well and not just those over the age of 18 who have a vote. I canvassed in the local elections myself last year. When I was going to the doors, I always made sure that if a young person under the age of 18 answered the door, I did not immediately ask where their parent or their older sibling were or how old they were. I asked for their perspective as much as I asked for their parents' perspective.

When I was growing up, my parents were not in politics and I was not involved until after the Covid pandemic. For my perception of politics, I did not know what the councillors did and I did not know what the TDs did. It was during the Covid pandemic when I heard all of the TDs and Ministers speak online about what was happening that I started paying attention because, during the Covid pandemic, everything that was happening was being dictated by the Government so we really had to listen at that point.

Afterwards, I kept engaging because when I came into more of the EU youth participation spaces and I started meeting directly with decision makers, they started coming into my school groups and coming into my youth groups. I was meeting with them face to face so I did not see them as just a title or a name. I saw them as actual human beings who had interests and passions and shared a lot of the same interests on issues that I do. I was able to connect with them as human beings rather than just this politician who goes into the Dáil every week and speaks about issues that did not seem as connected to my life as they do now.

Bring young people into those spaces. Give them the tools, the resources and the time. Meaningfully connect with them in those spaces but also go into the communities and be there for them as much as you are there for their parents and older siblings.

I will come in briefly as Aisling very much summed it up in what she said. There is a potential for precedent being created through the disconnection of politicians from young people through the utility of a vote. Over time, there is the potential that politicians in general and the political environment distances itself from young people because they do not have a vote. I am just presenting the fact that lowering the voting age could force a greater connection between politicians and young people, both in allowing young people to feel more connected in having a voice in politics and giving politicians a grounded reason to engage with young people because they have a say in whether they are getting elected or not.

Do you want to come in?

Briefly.

I am the Cathaoirleach so I can go over time.

We have lots of time, anyway.

We do. I will come back to the Deputy.

Building on what everyone said, it is very important to bring people into these spaces and especially into the Dáil. I just want to highlight a programme that my local youth services in Carlow run, a grassroots leadership programme run in collaboration with the county council. The county council is involved with local youth services and they can get more in touch with young people to hear their perspectives and get them involved in these programmes. Young people in that programme would have come to the county council and the councillors would have been able to engage with them in that way.

They then came here to the Oireachtas and had a day with some of the TDs from our constituency. Having programmes like this that are run in collaboration with the local youth services and the local authorities is probably one of the best ways to get in touch with these young people who you would probably never really have a chance to connect with them through any other means. Having this collaborative process between authorities and local youth spaces and these third spaces is probably one of the best ways we can do this.

Surprisingly enough, I was listening. The witnesses are all very welcome today. I just want to tease out some of the things that were said in the report. The witnesses talked about disillusionment with the powers that be in Europe. Most people you talk to outside of these Houses, when you talk to them about the way the world is going, are a bit worried. They are worried about the conflict that is happening in Ukraine. I am looking at those here, and if a conflict breaks out somewhere else, it will be young people who are involved. At the moment, it is young people who are fighting the war in Ukraine.

The witnesses said they are disillusioned and that, at EU level, we have these values but we do not seem to act on them. You would want to be living in a cave not to realise the horrors that have been happening, particularly over the past two years. You can look at the situation in Gaza but the DRC was mentioned in the youth council's own report. There is a protest outside the Dáil tomorrow about Sudan, where there have been 200,000 people killed. There was something like 30,000 people killed in one city alone over three days. There are 30 million people relying on food aid.

You get all that information and you just feel hopeless and helpless. There is talk of a lack of hope but I ask when was there a real hope about Europe in the witnesses' lifetime? That is the question I am asking. Was there a particular time they felt there was a real hope that Europe was going to change? I can imagine when countries are joining the EU, people are voting for this and they are hoping for real, positive change in their lives. If we look at the way Europe is going and particularly the European Union, it is becoming very conservative and is very much going down a right-wing route. Rather than inclusive, it is going the exclusive direction.

There is a lot of frustration from people my age and younger as there does not seem to be a role for citizens. The youth council is talking about youth participation but there is not one for citizens. Most people feel they are left behind. I would say most politicians feel the same, even though we are involved in the institutions and we try to articulate it as best we can. There is a sense that no one is listening that echoes across all age groups. On the lack of hope, the youth council also talks about the positives in relation to Europe. Could they talk about that as well?

Personally, the first engagement I had with the EU and first real hope I felt about the EU was back in 2019 when the EU youth goals were first drafted. I saw it as a recognition that young people had a really big part to play in Europe and it recognised the different ways young people had a big role to play in Europe on different topics. Going forward, tying into the piece you talked about on different conflicts around the world and global issues, something we would really like to see in the next set of European youth goals is a specific goal on youth and global peace and justice, alongside the consultation I mentioned earlier on youth peace and security.

It would tie in because we know conflict and global issues around the world have a profound impact on young people's mental well-being, even here in Ireland. We want a specific youth goal to address that and recognise the role young people are playing as peace builders across Europe and beyond. It would be really inspiring to see and hear stories from young people who are currently making change happen on these issues but also to encourage other young people and show them the ways they can take a stand. If there is an issue they want to see change or something we want to challenge, we can give them the tools and the resources so they can do that themselves as well.

I will move on and look at the hope and helplessness. As a young person, you are faced with many challenges in life, whether that is in your day-to-day or watching through your screen the other incidents and unfortunate tragedies that are happening across the world. My sense of hope was from being able to help my own community. I get my hope from the European Union or seeing the hope the European Union gives me through the European Solidarity Corps. I get to help people and I get to meet people, run events, organise those events and sit down to have a cup of coffee or tea and talk about the good things. I am able to say that was cofunded by the European Union.

That is where my sense of hope is. It is from the work I am able to do alongside a group of my friends in my local community. I can understand the helplessness that is there and it will always be there, but in the rare moments that hope is there, it is the little thing I will hold on to.

I am hoping that other young people also hold on to that hope to keep fighting for the things that we want to see better from the EU.

There was a reference to TikTok and Instagram for authentic communication. Pardon my French here, but a lot of stuff on TikTok is a load of shite, and I am talking about-----

Deputy Gogarty-----

Pardon my French-----

Did you hear about Deputy Stagg?

-----and my previous Deputy Stagg-----

He has history.

He has history. He has form.

Okay. Calm down.

We have so-called experts or influencers on the likes of TikTok, and not just on that medium. It is accessible. People can see it and get a little digest, but there is no critical analysis of what goes on. People have a distrust of the lamestream mainstream media, not just among the young cohort but also the ultra-religious 70- and 80-year-olds and upwards. They do not trust it either. There is a disconnect. There are, let us say, influencers coming from outside. We are talking about the troll farms in eastern Europe and Asia. I am getting to a question about social media and restrictions on it. The European Parliament did call for people to look at a social media ban. Australia has already brought it in. There are different views in terms of whether that should work or whether we should start there and then row back as the companies start playing ball. Aisha mentioned the algorithms, for example. Studies have shown that young men now are more right wing and young women are more liberal and that is because of the algorithms. Therefore, we have this kind of Andrew Tate-ification from primary school on where misogynistic stuff is becoming the norm if people are in that cycle. What are the witnesses' views on what Europe can do to protect young people in terms of the social media companies? That is my first question.

I might come in on this one. I and Aisling worked - I think it was at the start of this year - on a motion to the European Youth Forum regarding youth information. That is one of the massive strengths of Ireland. The thing I would point to, especially when we are discussing this, is youth information officers and youth information centres across Ireland. It is a specific practice under the umbrella of youth work where youth workers are empowered and have the training to sit with young people and discuss with them localised things for them and help them and equip them more so with tools rather than solutions. We are trying to focus a lot more on the process than we are the end of it, especially with the youth information officer. Let us say, we have something that is very unique in Ireland called the youth information chat. It is a service that is hosted. Right now, there is currently is no funding going towards it so I would highlight that as a major struggle, but that chat allows a young person to go online and type out a message or question on something they want to know a bit about and they send that to a youth information officer. That youth information officer will respond. In a way, they almost also have to prove that they are not AI, which is a discussion we actually had just outside before we came here.

What do you think, Ms Cullen? Are you AI? Are you a hologram? No.

They almost prove that they are not AI and then talk the young people through that process. They talk them through the question they have and would often even dig a bit deeper to find what is actually the crux of what they are looking for and what the real issue is they are trying to find behind it to build a level of trust and counter a lot of what we see online. There was a commission that published a report regarding this - I apologise; it has slipped my mind - but misinformation online spreads very much through that lack of trust. It can just go quickly and go everywhere. Young people have described it much more as a flow rather than any kind of news or something that people process. It is an erosion of critical thinking, but the way we confront that is offline spaces. We confront it through reliable information and giving young people understanding and tools rather than just the end game. So-----

I am sorry to interrupt; I am conscious of time. How should politicians interact with young people given that, if they are under 18, we have to follow safe practices? How do we engage?

I am going to say it is to meet them where they are, and one of the best ways to do that is either through engaging in schools or youth services or spaces where they are and being there presently. The reason having politicians at events where young people are the main focus is that it shows that politician cares about the issues those young people are going to be speaking about. My one issue with that is that many politicians do that for the picture, and they are there for a tokenistic benefit of their own and not to actually listen to the young people who are there speaking.

My original question to the witnesses was how they think we can get more engagement at a European level and get Europe back to its original values. What can young people do and what can young people working together do across Europe?

I will go again. Again, this is really about that flow of information and discourse from a local to regional to national level to the European Union and having it flow both ways. We need to be able to have that discourse and that talk with our MEPs who are representing us. They are not representing someone who votes; they are representing a constituency and all the people in that constituency.

I am eternally hopeful because no matter what is thrown at us, be it as a society, country, European Union or whatever it is, there are always challenges. Sometimes, there are things that go on in the world that just seem to have no end, but they do end. Generally, as we move on, there are always a great bunch of people coming in behind us. It is obvious from the contributions today that the future is bright, to coin a phrase. That is just the way it is. The wheel turns. One generation goes and the other one comes in to fill the space. I generally think that people are good overall and that the right thing is done in the end. It might take a while to get done but it generally does and through communication, as Franek said, starting at the grassroots, working through to the local authority, contacting your politicians and reminding them that they are a voice for you even if you do not have a vote as of yet. To keep that front and centre in their minds as much as anything else is always hugely important. Language matters, and how we use our language. Ultimately, it does not matter what space it is, I find that sometimes the language used is more violent. I am not referring to Deputy Gogarty - he is fine - but we seem to be angrier than we have ever been before. Through communication and the proper use of language, talking and dialogue are always key.

I want to ask the witnesses this. Australia brought in its ban on social media. In the witnesses' opinion, because it affects their generation in time, did it do the right thing?

I will jump in there because Ursula von der Leyen asked us the exact same question a few weeks ago.

I see that.

The NYCI-----

I would not want to be associated with that.

Deputy Ó Murchú-----

The NYCI was able to nominate two young people to join Ursula von der Leyen's youth advisory board. The first meeting took place two weeks ago on the topic of social media. We were talking about basically every issue the EU has ever asked about in relation to social media, and one of them was around banning it for under-16s. The conclusion we came to as a group of 30 youth representatives from EU member countries, but also from Canada and other countries, including Ukraine, Montenegro and the rest, was that banning social media altogether for under-16s would probably have more cons than pros because, yes, there are a lot of risks that need to be mitigated with social media, but young people are also using it as a place to meet each other out of school. Not every young person gets on well in school. Not everyone finds the friends that they connect to in school. Not every young person is able to explore their passions and interests in school. Therefore, for a lot of young people, connecting online with people with shared interests and passions is really important because they get to meet like-minded people. They get to explore and have conversations that their schools might not have and that they might not be allowed to have in schools depending on what country they are in as well. There is, therefore, a really valuable space online for young people in that.

In the report we gave her, we addressed different challenges around these really addictive algorithms and the pushing social media companies do and this addictive behaviour they push on young people to keep engaging in social media, especially through features like auto-scrolling. That report is there, and I am happy to share it afterwards. Overall, however, the consensus around the table was that we would rather see regulations being put in place than an overall ban because we feel that if a blanket ban is put in place, then young people will feel even more disconnected from the EU because they feel like the EU is taking something away from them rather than protecting them. It is just around that narrative.

What I would hope to add there is that it unfairly places the onus and almost the burden of the negative impact of social media on young people.

The system was built in a certain way. It is not the young person's fault that the system is having a negative impact on them. The ban seems to place the fault with the young people, which I find incredibly unfair. I second everything Aisling has said and even compound the point. A ban will not necessarily help prevent a lot of the issues we are seeing. If anything, it would exacerbate them. Young people would end up going underground. They would find ways to access services anyway and would do that in ways we cannot help them with. They would do it in ways where they access services illegally and there may be a level of shame where they are less likely to engage with us on it. That is not constructive and not helpful. Our opinion and that of a lot of young people we have consulted with is that we need to work with them constructively to equip them with tools to identify misinformation but also to understand how that misinformation was made as well as how to counter it in themselves or how to choose who and who not to trust. Another big element I highlight is that it is not just young people. Young people consistently get a lot of misinformation that is also spread through adults. This is a big focus of the upcoming Presidency. It will potentially focus on parents, carers and educators who are trusted adults who spread misinformation. They will see things online and spread them. Young people trust them and get that misinformation through adults. It is also on adults to decide what is and is not trustworthy and for them to develop those skills. A lot of this discourse focuses heavily on how it is the young person, when it is not necessarily the young person. It can be a lot of the factors surrounding them, which highlights a lot of the collaboration we need to see more of in this area. It needs to be less of a focus on it being the young person's fault or that they have done something wrong. It needs to be a whole society, cross-cutting approach to understand the issue and respond to it more effectively.

What is the right age to put a device in a child's hand? Somebody gifts it or gives it to a child. What ages were the witnesses when they got their first phones or devices?

It depends on the supervision of the parents and how much time they are willing to put into the oversight of it. If parents just leave kids with a device at a young age, there are potential dangers. It depends on a case by case. I cannot remember the exact age I got access to social media, but I know it was young enough to develop a level of understanding of what I see as right or wrong, and helping my parents to understand what disinformation is and what is not. Speaking to the social media ban as a whole, social media has pros and cons. Social media is relatively new, and just cutting it off because it has cons is not a solution. Before social media, you could argue that parents were a great source of disinformation. They would hear something from their pal down the road and relay it to you. It would be completely wrong, and you had no way to verify it. It was a source of disinformation, but nobody suggested banning parents. It is about how we tackle the core issues that lie in social media rather than cutting off the entire thing for young people. All of a sudden at 16, providing that they did not find underground means to look through social media, they will be exposed to this big world instead of slowly integrated and given the tools to understand it. I do not think that suddenly exposing them to it will have a positive effect on young people.

None of us are child development experts, but I was 12 years old when I first got access to social media and Instagram. I was in sixth class at primary school. All of my peers were doing it and I was moving on to secondary school, so my parents wanted me to get to know how to work the phone before heading off to secondary school because it was an hour away from where I lived and I would have to get the bus every day. That was the reasoning behind it for us, but nowadays I have seen parents just giving their children iPads or phones to keep them busy or things like that. I see a lot of parents putting their children on their own accounts on social media. Even if they are not directly using social media themselves, they are interacting with it from an early age where they do not even know about it at certain points. That also needs to be combated because they do not even know what repercussions that might have in ten or 20 years’ time.

Social media has a detrimental impact on a huge number of people. It is about the capacity to be able to analyse what is there. It is not even the idea of not believing any conspiracy theory. It is just about not buying every one of them, and particularly not buying the ones that emotionally detonate with you and that you would like to believe. We have all seen it. There are plenty of people my age and older who end up down rabbit holes and in an unhealthy place. I will work on the basis that, from what has been said, the witnesses believe that, at this stage, they have a sufficient number of analytical skills with regard to dealing with social media and all the problems there are with it. We would like to see a lot of this improved, whether through the use of the Digital Services Act, Coimisiún na Meán and all the wherewithal up against it now. I have said before that it is like a five-a-side soccer team going up against Bayern Munich at its best. It is difficult to see how they come out as a winner. However, the witnesses have developed this sort of capacity. How do they believe they did that and how can we pass that on? We often talk about the Finnish example where it is all about computer and IT literacy, but it is not just about being able to use. It is about being able to analyse and protect yourself. These are obviously skills they believe they have developed, so how did they and what can be done from a point of view of putting that in action for more people?

I developed that with my youth workers. It was every week when you talked about what was going on or the drama in your school. Your youth worker would question you in a friendly way because they were trying to better understand. They would also challenge you if you were saying things as if they were facts rather than statements of opinion. I have been involved in so many spaces that have allowed me have discourse and discussion with people of varying and opposing opinions, and have done so in a safe space where I am not in any shape or form trying to attack anyone and no one is trying to attack me or my opinions.

You were questioned and therefore you had to defend you positions.

You start to dig deeper into why you believe such and such. There is the distinction of understanding what is a statement and what is fact. Nowadays, there is the use of generative AI and the number of deepfake videos we see up there of our faces and voices. Because we are not surprised anymore by anything we see online, there is no longer a version of fact or statement on social media. That even means we have to exercise and continuously develop the critical analysis skills we have gained and develop them with the emergent technologies in our lives. The journey has not ended and is continuing into our everyday lives, but we are lucky to be in spaces where we can have those discussions and have other people challenge us on any opinions or statements we may think are fact.

In fairness to the witnesses, they are providing a ringing endorsement of the benefits of youth work.

I echo exactly what Aisha has said. Spaces to have dialogue is how I developed these skills. It is about adult role models you can look to, to see what respectful debate looks like. For me, it was my parents and teachers but especially youth workers. It was even in the context of intercultural dialogue. Having discussions with people who have completely different understandings of the world is what provided me with that experience. I know that is not a universal thing and is not something everyone can access. Something I always highlight is that a lot of the opportunities we provide in youth work are able to provide that in some cases. That is really positive, but the online space is also a good place to do it. My personal anecdote is that we sat down discussing human rights during an activity and we were presented with and asked what the Red Cross looks like. Half of the room held up a red crescent and the other half held up a red cross because we had different understandings of the same organisation. It is about that open dialogue and to ability to model after adults.

It is also about being built up and understanding the space where everyone can approach with a different understanding of what is going on.

It is a comfortable or even, for the want of a better term, fun shared space where everybody is comfortable, so therefore-----

I do not even think it is that. In Loreto Secondary School, Balbriggan, we were one of the first schools to pilot politics and society. We had a politics teacher who really pressured us to debate. It might have been quite uncomfortable to have-----

That is even better.

-----discussions on topics. You are in school so you might not want to offend the teacher, especially in school. Our politics teacher would always say they were playing devil's advocate and put things out there that were quite outrageous but you were forced to debate that narrative and really get into it. It is really interesting to step into someone else's shoes with their thoughts and opinions and see how they formed those opinions. Sometimes that allows us to step back and see that while we may disagree with their opinion, that does not mean we have to harbour hatred or any sort of toxic or negative feelings towards that person.

It is an ability to analyse. It is also respectful debate.

Yes. One thing I want to say is that there was a youth worker who very nicely explained it to us. He is present in the room today. You have your comfort space, stretch space and stress space, or a space that is a little bit too far. Proper, good learning and dialogue happens in that stretch space where your-----

It is resilience building. It allows for some element of resilience building as well.

Yes, where you build it up. You are brought out into that stretch space and held there for a little bit and you can go back into your comfort space, but moving into that stretch space is where you learn and build that up.

I know I have gone over, so I will be very quick. That is all fine and we need to be able to operate where the need is. Schools are the obvious places to put some of this, as much as it is better if there is an outside interaction. However, we do need some element of protections and my fear is where somebody does not have that and all they are getting is what the algorithms and the recommender systems are putting in front of them. You might be looking up one thing because it is on the news and you think it is fairly interesting and suddenly you are getting Adolf Hitler's speeches in English. Then we are in a very different place where you suddenly might say, "That sounds reasonable". Nobody should think that but it is a very funny world and we have had conversations with people we never thought we would have had in the last while.

What the young people are saying really is that the solutions may not all be online, like regulation. A lot of the solutions will be offline-----

I agree.

-----with the youth worker in your school, etc. I refer to teaching around youth work and developing critical thinking and how we need to invest in youth work to make sure there are spaces for young people to develop those skills.

He obviously bullied the witnesses to say those nice things about him.

Not particularly. He is especially nice, so it is fine. I would even say that partnership especially is what we need to look at in these kinds of space. It is bringing everyone together. What you have to look at is almost intergenerational because there is also a level of fear. A lot of people do not necessarily understand - not to be rude - what younger generations are going through. You are being brought up with the Internet and with your phone. You are being brought up in it, which is very different from how a lot of other generations were brought up. It is quite hard to even have a conversation because there are really different understandings. A lot of partnership needs to happen where it is not just one sector that takes over. It has to be about working together. You can see it in education. In third level education you can see even today that you would run a workshop that would have been modelled years ago and first began in the likes of the youth sector, or you would see education in secondary school take on a more participative format, whereby something works a lot better if the educators ask their young people to contribute their experiences, the educators contribute a little bit, and we all move and learn a little bit together. Those methods would have been piloted, in the first instance, through non-formal education, which is what you have in youth work and what youth work is.

I thank Deputy Ó Murchú and I invite Deputy Butterly to take the Chair, if that is possible.

This is a bit of an existential one, given some of the contributions. There is a cordon sanitaire in the European Parliament, which is unfortunately not as effective as it was, as of this European Parliament. When comments are made that there has been a shift to the right - that is in the European Parliament in particular but not only there - I am less bemused by the shift rightwards, as a member of a centre-left party. If people want a more social Europe, they can vote for parties that espouse a more social Europe. It is in the hand of the voter and that gives me hope as to being in the Labour Party. My concern is more with the shift towards Eurosceptic parties, parties whose stated aim is to bring the institutions down from the inside. Make no mistake, there are Eurosceptic parties and Members in this Parliament who would not have had us join the euro and whose support of Ukraine defending against a war of aggression is lukewarm. Given that, can the witnesses tell me their feelings about Euroscepticism and that lurch towards nationalism they see going across all of Europe at the moment? Do they see any positives within it? Do they see it as a regression towards a pre-Second World War state of affairs? Do they think there are issues that can only be resolved at the European level or would it be better if powers were devolved back to member states?

What I might come in and say, echoing back a bit, is that I very strongly disagree with them but I think we need to have the space for open dialogue. We need to have the space to confront it. If we allow ideas to go even unchecked or unconfronted, if we just say, "I am not going to even address this", or if we do not allow the space for the discussion to happen or for anything to be confronted or moved along, we just end up having it move underground. What we especially need to have are open dialogues. We need to have moments where people can have respectful dialogues whereby they are not attacking each other but discussing ideas in a constructive way. A lot of what I see modelled, especially in the EU Youth Dialogue, is where we talk about ideas. We are discussing them. We can have ones we disagree with it but we discuss them nonetheless and we have space to talk about them. We do not just shut them down straight away.

Following on from Leo's point, when you do actually have that discussion, especially with young people who are Eurosceptic, a lot of their concerns or their shift or lean towards that ideology comes from the fact that they are not receiving the services they deserve. It is very easy, as was said earlier, to blame the European Union in that Ireland has had to conform or do something because we are a member state of the EU. Once it is fact-checked and once you have that open conversation, you would very much say, "No, that is not the case. That is national decision-making which happens here in this Dáil and it is members of Government parties or Opposition who support these Bills and decisions. It is not a decision that is made at a European Union level." Again, we go back to that misinformation. A lot of misinformation pushes young people to have that Eurosceptic opinion. One of the biggest things that pushes young people now is the cost-of-living crisis. It is something that is impacting every country but young people are especially impacted by it. There is a rise in the difficulty to attain education, or the difficulty in attaining a job as a young person, with entry-level roles becoming extremely competitive. There is the inability to move out of a parent's house, and housing. I am sure nobody in this space here is unfamiliar with these topics. I believe that the lack of support for young people in both the public and private sectors really pushes that Eurosceptic lean.

It is quite scary as a young person, seeing all this democratic backsliding and politicians, decision-makers and even some countries retreating from the global community. The positive is that these extremist voices are minorities at the moment. We need to keep it that way by combating the different narratives they are spreading through disinformation, campaigns and actions, and by highlighting and communicating all the work the EU does and all the benefits it brings on us on a national level but especially on a local level.

Do we have more time?

Would it not be wonderful? It really would.

How many minutes do we have left? Can we come back again?

You can.

Grand. I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach. I want to focus on the positives for a second. I forget myself. I do not know if the witnesses have seen either "Monty Python's Life of Brian" or "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". There is that bit, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" Nothing, nothing. What has the EU ever done for us? We have the European Court of Justice and we have environmental laws that actually push Ireland. We got our little nitrates derogation as well, which certain people are happy with.

I am not happy with it, but at least Europe is pushing.

In terms of the social media companies, X was given a big fine. Elon Musk is trying to discredit the European Union. I take on board what Aisling said about people's lack of trust, but equally, the US has turned into two echo chambers that never meet and have the discussion that she referred to whereby when someone has a disagreement but still listens to what the other side has to say. Sometimes people meet not quite in the middle, but closer together. Is the European Union not the last remaining slightly democratic institution in the world that allows for that type of engagement? Is the glass half full or half empty?

I do not think any of us would be sitting here if we did not have any faith in the EU, so we are off to a good start there. Coming up through Young Voices and engaging with EU dialogue, each of us understands how important the EU is for Ireland. We understand how many benefits it has brought and what it has done and continues to do for our country. Many young people in education will have done an Erasmus study abroad programme in their third year at college. That is one way that many young people have benefited from Ireland being a member country of the EU because they get to explore different countries and cultures and get to engage with young people across Europe and understand different perspectives. We have all been involved in different European programmes and got to travel to different countries and engage in different dialogues. It has been great. I do not think any of us regret any decisions we made to participate in European programmes, but what we really want to see is for more young people to be able to share in these opportunities. It is great that we now have meaningful youth participation structures growing and evolving, starting with EU dialogue. We have the ESC and the Erasmus+ funding streams, as well as the EU institutions designing and creating their own meaningful youth participation structures where they can get our feedback directly, but it is about expanding these things in the years ahead.

It is also about maintaining them. The narrative in Europe is unfortunately leaning quite negatively, especially when it comes to opportunities for young people to feel and continue to harbour that hope. The existing programmes need to be protected with the aim to then further them and their reach. We may be one of the only places where that hope is still there, but we need to back it up with action to make it a reality. It is great to have hope, but if it does not become a reality and does not become impactful, then all we are doing is talking about wishy-washy things that we would love to see but are not actually seeing.

The power of the EU also comes from the steps up to it. There are the local, regional and national levels, which go up to the European level. Even in places where we do not have a direct connection to the EU, there is still the step that goes all the way up to it. We might not see it directly, but the connection is there. We know that in some way the MEPs are working with national parliaments and that the Council of Europe's ministers come from member states. Those ministers talk to TDs or Senators, and those TDs and Senators talk to councillors. It goes from the bottom level all the way up. Even the knowledge of that makes it an incredibly powerful institution in and of itself.

The involvement of young people at those different levels is also really powerful. We have some very good mechanisms in the EU. They follow different philosophies and do different things. It would be very positive to see them expand across all the different levels to ensure we have that power right the way through from local to national to EU level.

I want to second what Aisha said about the expanding of young people's knowledge and involvement in these spaces. I think all of us feel privileged to be in these spaces and to have these opportunities that are being presented to us throughout our time being involved in the youth work sphere. I would not be here if my guidance counsellor had not walked into my classroom in 2021 and told me about the opportunity in the youth centre. It was completely by chance, and I feel that it should not be by chance that a young person gets to be in these spaces and have conversations with the members of the committee and other opportunities with TDs.

I want to double down on the importance of having these programmes and opportunities made available so that interested young people can find them instead of accidentally stumbling upon them. That is something that has to change and has to keep evolving over the next few years.

I would not be here if I had not wanted a day off school in fifth year. I went down to the town to go to a random regional event. It led to me becoming involved in this space, meeting people and finding new opportunities. As Franek said, however, it should not be like that. It should not be a random, spur-of-the-moment thing. It should not be like that. Students in school should know about through formal or informal education. It should be communicated better. The Presidency is a great stage on which the values of the EU and the ways to get involved could be communicated. The ability of youth work to reach more people could be invaluable in getting more people on board rather than through these lucky, random moments through which we have found ourselves in this space and got these opportunities.

Rather than just going on the record, can a note be sent asking that the priorities for the European Union Presidency include the need for the engagement process for young people to be taken more seriously? The contributions made here should also be analysed in terms of what sort of added value can be added to the programme. That would make a lot of sense rather than just thanking the witnesses and letting them go. Could we make a note on that?

Is that agreed? Agreed.

That was my next point. Young people will keep hope, if it is relevant, and that includes the upcoming EU youth strategy, the EU programme and the priorities for the Irish Presidency of the EU. They have to be relevant, if they are setting the agenda with revised EU youth goals. As Deputy Gogarty just referred to, the recommendations need to be analysed to turn them into actions.

Please do not just bring us in on youth issues because, as we like to say, every issue is a youth issue. Whether we are talking about agriculture, transport, health or education, bring young people in.

The witnesses should not go there. They should try and get the wins that they can because if they start going into everything else, it will just turn into a bureaucratic mess. I take your point, though.

Could we also try to avoid replication because we do have an incredibly powerful youth council. We have a really good one. We also have a lot of existing mechanisms. We have the national youth assembly, Comhairle na nÓg, youth work organisations, representative organisations such as AMLÉ, the Irish Second Level Students Union, Foróige, Youth Work Ireland, Crosscare and the YMCA. There are structures that exist all across the island, North and South. This can be a very positive all-island approach, but we do not want to be replicating work. We do not want to create new mechanisms where something has existed before. We need to support existing mechanisms and move forward instead of regressing a bit to create a new thing that can go and do the exact same thing that was done a year or two ago.

I thank the witnesses for coming in. It was a treat and a pleasure, but most of all it was informative. They have an eloquence that I wish I had had at their age. On Deputy Gogarty's point, it is an issue that has been part of the discussions in preparation for the EU Presidency and is certainly an issue that will come from this committee so that we really home in on it. When it comes to Erasmus+ and the witnesses get the opportunity to talk students, the uptake in Irish schools is quite poor in comparison with other European countries. It is the schools that take the lead on Erasmus+ that avail of the opportunity. It really is word of mouth. I went back to my old secondary school and asked if it participates in Erasmus+. It is a very slow process and the schools really have to get involved. There is so much opportunity in terms of the EU that we did not touch on. There is so much opportunity for young people in terms of jobs, culture and learning and they can start at a young age in secondary school.

As the witnesses said, it is about steps from the grassroots upwards to every level.

On behalf of the committee, I thank the witnesses for coming in. That is the end of the public session. We will now go into private session. Is that agreed? I am being very authoritarian. Agreed.