Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Following on from the closing remarks of Professor O'Mahony in respect of the request for the voices of children to be heard in this debate, as Dr. Milosevic has alluded to, we had several transition year students here last week from Kinsale and Tallaght. I will read from the submission of two of the girls from Kinsale, which states: "Sometimes it can be infuriating for students to be lectured on the dangers of social media by parents who perhaps don't understand that this is an integral part of growing up." Everyone here this morning has touched on that point and the issue of finding that balancing act. However, I refer back to the remarks made by Dr. McAuley in her opening statement on guaranteeing the fundamental rights. I ask all of the witnesses the following. Currently, how far short is the general scheme of the legislation in respect of getting the fundamental rights and the definitions right? Already we have touched on a number of points in respect of defining pornography and abuse. How far short are we in that respect?

I have a follow-up question, specifically for Professor O'Mahony. I am delighted that he touched on the category of harmful online content, in particular, in the area of gambling. He noted in his submission that about three quarters of teenagers of between 12 and 17 years of age gamble annually, higher than any other age group. I fully support him in the point he made about the failure to deal with this. I ask him to allude to that. By way of illustrating the dangers and the very devious way in which gambling companies can use these platforms to target children, I will use the following example. Just last week, a prominent Dublin GAA star, acting as an ambassador for one of these gambling companies, spoke about underage football. In the body of the article, when reference was made to the gambling company for which he was acting as ambassador, the name of the gambling company was highlighted so that a user could click on it and be brought to the live online betting odds for last weekend's fixtures. That is how deceptive and devious they are. They are able to use these platforms to attack young underage children. It galls me to think that there are sports stars being complicit in this area and are letting their good names be used for the exploitation of others. Those are my questions.