Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee. My head is going to explode because this is mind boggling. I have three children, for whom I have bought smartphones and they have iPads. I am absolutely terrified. There are parents watching this who are confiscating phones as we speak. I totally agree we need to have some sort of practical guidelines on phones, without a doubt. We were speaking about whether education works. I used to be smoker. The children learned about smoking in school during an awareness campaign. As legislators, we need to have an awareness campaign which educates parents. Technology has moved on so much regarding what my children could probably do on the phone and Internet that I cannot do. This is the way we need to go. We need to have collective joined up thinking with stakeholders, the witnesses and legislators to get this right. The witnesses have made very valid points. We cannot come back in years to come after generations of children have been affected. As legislators, we have to put serious pressure on social media outlets. We have seen it ourselves. We have had witnesses before the committee. We have been dismissed by some of them and off they went, but the responsibility has to be put on their shoulders also.