Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Following on from Senator Freeman's comments on technology, in the private sector, for any technology that is used, there is always a global or centralised agreement on the way technology is disseminated. I agree with Senator Freeman that it is putting a lot of pressure on teachers and parents to have autonomy on this and to be told to decide what technology to use. It is no disrespect to them to say they are not educated enough to be able to decide what is the best technology to use within a specific school. They are coming from a generation that did not grow up with it, although I know the younger ones are from such a generation. They go out to the market and there is a plethora of platforms and applications to choose from and they do not know which is the right one. They hear all this conflicting evidence that goes around the place. The schools need centralised guidance on a particular platform or tool or what is the best practice. That guidance would make life a lot easier for teachers, who do have a lot of pressure on them in this regard.

In the private sector, any of the major businesses that use any enterprise resource planning, ERP, system do so in a way that is quite centralised and disseminated globally. It is just a question of copying that model. It is much easier for the workers and the IT systems to integrate and for the information to be disseminated. It can be done quite easily as well.

I would take a more liberal view on technology and children. Like in hurling, we have to get right in within technology and actually have children interact with it. We should allow them to learn positive patterns, behaviours and feedback in their communication and interaction with technology. That is from my own research from speaking to people about it. I understand that we could take the more conservative view of banning technologies up to a certain age. Sometimes when we ban something, it becomes more attractive. It is like prohibition. That is no disrespect to what was put forward. At what age do we stop - six, seven, 13 or whatever? A child might pick up a tablet at home - he or she might know the password and might not tell the parents. Given that the child is not educated and has not interacted with it, he or she is just swiping. It is important that they understand technology and how it works and that they are educated on the pitfalls to a certain degree. Obviously we do not want to take away a child's innocence either; we do not want to take away their childhood from them. What are the thoughts in the Department about that? Have there been discussions around it? Mr. Weir said that Webwise will continue until 2019. What is the focus for the next 18 months? Does Mr. Weir have any proposals for the time from 2019 on? Are there applications for more funding or what discussion is to take place afterwards?

I think my contribution is more around the softer behaviours of children in respect of technology - ordinary everyday stuff. The softer side of cyber bullying, for want of a better word, as opposed to sexual abuse or anything like that, which is the harder side of things where real crime is committed. We can have people on their phones aged ten, 11, 12 or even younger, who might be picked on or bullied at school or whatever through a group. I am trying to focus on the softer side. What are the thoughts around that?