Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The questions I had intended to ask are similar to those of other members, so I will try not to repeat them. I thank all the witnesses for attending. We cannot talk about AI without talking about the platforms' offerings to children. Fianna Fáil held its Ard-Fheis at the weekend and the Tánaiste described the impact on children from social media and from being constantly online as the new public health crisis of our time. That is how serious this is. I agree with him and support his warning to social media giants to get underage children off the apps, or else the Government will force this in order to deal with the new public health crisis. That is what the Tánaiste is saying. I speak to parents daily and there are huge concerns. We have sent out clear guidance to schools to help parents, and soon we will see funding to support the banning of smartphone use during school time. This is happening.

As an example of how children are affected, a constituent of mine runs a well-known physiotherapy clinic. He will not mind me saying its name, the Realta Clinic. He has been advocating for standard posture training for children in schools to prevent posture-related problems in later life, and the posture problem is directly related to children being on their phones at all times. This is a long-term problem and we really need to work to see what we can do about it. The Meta representatives spoke about working with communities throughout the world and holding workshops, which is very good, and they referred to the 30 types of tools they have introduced, which is fine, but I am a firm believer that when we speak about harmful content and its reporting, there has to be a timeframe whereby it can be introduced quickly.

Others have spoken about fake accounts, for example. How can we sort them out? There are issues in that regard. As one representative said, these platforms are businesses. There were references to mental health, body image and other issues. There is great concern and there needs to be change. I agree with the Tánaiste that this is the public health crisis of our time. While it is great to have the representatives before the committee, at the end of the day our children are our future and they are now very adept with smartphones. What steps are the platforms taking to get underage children off their apps? That is the biggest concern facing us.

I could go on with further questions but, as I said, they are similar to those of previous speakers. I again thank the witnesses for attending.