Professor Conor O'Mahony:

I echo what Dr. McAuley has said. I also welcome that young people were invited to appear before the committee last week. I had not been aware of that before today and it is good to hear. It is incredibly important that any child participation is meaningful and not just a tokenistic thing. It should not be done just to give the appearance that children have been involved. They need to be given a meaningful opportunity to have their say, contribute to the process, and to have their views properly considered and taken on board as part of that process.

The important point has been made that this is an ongoing process. As we are all aware, the digital environment evolves very quickly and how it looks today may not be how it looks in a few years. Dr. Culloty has repeatedly made the point about future-proofing. Part of that future-proofing process must involve staying in touch with young people to hear their experiences of how it has changed and evolved, and for that feed into reviews of codes of practice or reviews of the legislation itself in years to come.