Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A number of comments were made on the service that Facebook provides. The platform that Facebook provides to the world is very positive. As Deputy Rabbitte has said it is about friends and connections and not about the abuse and nonsense that goes on. Human nature is as it is. In general social media is a very important tool not just in terms of keeping connections with loved ones around the world but also in terms of professional communications and as a tool for many other industries, education and health care among other things. I would like to comment on the positive side. I also thank sincerely the witnesses from Facebook for coming before the committee because they did not have to. We really appreciate that they have taken the time out of their morning and giving a large block of time to us on this important subject matter that will feed into the report that we will publish sometime in the new year, once we complete our hearings.

Members, and Deputy Neville in particular, have suggested that there may be follow-up and I certainly agree that there are a number of questions, particularly in terms of demographic data that are probably available but it might be helpful if such data were provided to us on the level of penetration in certain age brackets in this jurisdiction. That would be helpful in terms of framing our report on cybersecurity as it applies to children and young people and it certainly would be helpful in terms of interaction with other groups and organisations in the coming meeting.

On my behalf and on behalf of the committee I thank the witnesses sincerely for coming before us and being so robust and frank in their responses. It was a worthwhile engagement.

We will suspend the sitting to allow our next guest, the Ombudsman for Children to come before us.