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

I thank the delegation for coming in. I am sorry for being late but I picked it up as Dr. Muldoon was talking about the pathfinder project. That is something I am trying to push through in the Dáil. It is with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and that is where we need to move it on from. I do not know if any correspondence has come back or if Dr. Muldoon knows anything from his side. I need to table another parliamentary question on it.

I heard the discussion on online bullying and cyberbullying. If this has been stated already, please let me know and I can check the transcript. I refer to social media and the Office of the Ombudsman's findings on the culture of social media. I am starting to see more evidence that children are being influenced by what adults are doing on social media because it is open to everybody and everyone can see it. I know we have had hearings in this committee where we have discussed peer-to-peer communication between children across social media platforms, but I am more worried about what children are seeing adults do on social media and how we will grasp that nettle via free speech versus censorship and all the other parts that go around this debate. From where I have seen social media go in the past six months to two years and the culture of how people are conducting themselves on social media, that may have a huge subliminal effect on children and on what they are reading and seeing. It is incumbent on all of us that we look at this from a different viewpoint, that we do not just look at it singularly from a children's point of view but that we look at the culture of this across the board-----