Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is hard to come up with something fresh after two hours of discussion, but I wholeheartedly agree with much of what Deputy Funchion said. I also concur with Mr. Church on primary schools. Do children start first year of secondary school at 11 or 12 years of age? In any event, by the time children reach the teenage years, many of their core skills are very much developed. Although they are still developing, the groundwork has been done. Prevention and early intervention work should be done at primary level.

I wish to make two specific points on social media abuse and negative or difficult material online. Have the organisations had interactions with social media firms? Are they doing enough to help, for want of a better word, contribute or provide funding in the area to support mental health? I have read several studies that came out in the UK. God knows, we all know that Twitter is a negative space. We question it to protect our own mental health sometimes in the positions we are in. This is something that was touched on by one of our guests. Does a teenager have the objectivity to recognise reality as it relates to Instagram? It may seem that the world is perfect but people filter things. It must be recognised that someone might have just had the biggest row in the world. Yet, he or she looks in his or her element and it appears that life is perfect. Teenagers do not have the objectivity or skills to know that the person may actually have had a bad day yesterday and will probably have a really crap day tomorrow. Life is not as perfect as these people's clothes look or as their smiles or filters makes them look. What can social media firms do? What can we do policy-wise to counter that? It is ever increasing. We have to accept that being online is life for many young people now. Do our guests have any thoughts in that regard which could be helpful for our report in terms of direction and policy?