Ms Deirdre O'Keeffe:

I hope to address all of the questions, of which there were many. On the public persona of the office or the fact that some people were not aware of its function, in fairness to everyone, this may be because we work through partners, for example, the Garda schools programme, the National Parents Council Primary and the National Centre for Technology in Education, NCTE. We do a great deal of work through our partners which disseminate a large quantity of material on our behalf. We hope schools have come across this material through those bodies. I have with me copies of some of the booklets we have produced. Requests for booklets are submitted to us from parents and schools and we meet these requests all the time. Demand for these booklets is very strong. I am sure I can provide members with the most recent figures on demand. It may be that people are not aware of the office for Internet safety but they will be aware of our work through the schools, Garda schools programmes and the National Parents Council, with which we work all the time. I am reminded also that we work through the ISPCC and Childline. We work through many partners.

The key role of the office is to try to provide information and support to various people. Deputy Michael Moynihan asked whether we offered anything specific in terms of the strength of the support we give to people. I have with me some material we produced for Internet Day in February this year. I can leave copies or send some to the joint committee after the meeting. The material is in the form of a leaflet, bookmark and poster for use in schools and so forth. The leaflet contains a specific message to young people who believe they are in difficulty in this area. It contains specific steps, written carefully and in plain English, for those who believe they are victims of cyberbullying. It also contains the information the Deputy seeks on our contact details, including a telephone number, website and e-mail address for those who need to contact us. Our telephone line is not intended for use by children who may be in a particular difficult situation immediately, although obviously we will also take such calls. We try, through our website and telephone lines, to refer such children and young people on to where they would receive the help they need, for example, specialist services operating in this area.

We keep our website under review to ensure it remains interesting and attractive to young people who may find themselves in a difficult position. It provides a large amount of information on what a person should do in particular circumstances and who they should contact. Telephone numbers and e-mail addresses are provided on the website. Our aim is to ensure that anybody who has a query or question or finds himself or herself in a difficult position is able to go to the correct source and may, through the telephone line, get directed to wherever they need to go to get-----