Mary Ann O'Brien (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would love to strangle Ask.fm, put it in the ocean and drown it forever. A person must be 13 to join Facebook but statistics indicate there are 5 million children aged under ten on it. We have Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Twitter in Ireland, and all the people behind them love to speak to Ministers. The Minister should keep himself informed and be sure to inform the people behind those companies, as they are powerful and can help us.

With regard to Internet safety month, I will again return to the cancer motif. October is coming and how powerful is that pink ribbon? This cancer is so powerful in our children that we must come together and help the Minister formulate a plan for people to use social media effectively in that month. I pity the Minister as 40,070 sessions for parents is not enough. I am a busy parent and I am ashamed to say I did not get to the information night last year at my school. Mums and dads must get to such sessions and become trained in these issues. I think I am a fairly hip mother but I really have not a clue. I have to teach myself how to speak to my child and let her know that I must set the proper boundaries, for example, she must share passwords and I need to know her privacy settings are safe. We all know this is an evolving area.

In my short speech today I am blathering on about the likes of Viber and Snapchat, which is another application that really worries me. My child is only 13 but what will happen when boys become interesting? With Snapchat I could send a picture that will disappear in 30 seconds so it is apparently "safe" to use. It may disappear from the phone but where is it gone? It goes to the cloud.

If I put a picture of the Minister on the Internet through Facebook, it would be shared through friends and friends of friends, meaning it can go viral. We are only having fun but if, for example, the Minister had been drunk and was photographed in a terrible state, what hope would he have of getting a job in the Cabinet? He would be done and dusted forever because it is a permanent process.