Ms Gabrielle Cummins:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak about the research that Beat 102-103 commissioned Spark Market Research to conduct on the impact of Covid-19 on school and college goers aged between 16 and 22. Beat 102-103 is Ireland's first regional radio station. We target those aged between 15 and 34 in counties Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny and south Tipperary. I am joined today by our associate director at Spark Market Research, Megan Reynolds, who will field specific questions on the research carried out, should members have any. I will begin by reading some of the communication we received directly to the radio station from our listeners: "My life has become incredibly hard, and I have nowhere to turn, please can you help me"; "My mental health hasn’t been the best of late ... today I'm struggling but you have made me smile"; "I was feeling suicidal a few months back, thanks for helping me get the support I needed".

A total of 3.1 million people in Ireland tune in to radio every day. It is an important live immediate platform where real stories are heard and responded to by real people every day. Over the past year, Beat 102-103 has seen an increase in communication from young people verbalising their mental health struggles. With 42% prime time market share we know they listen to us throughout the day. We felt it crucial that we understood what they were going through and how to help them. This is why we commissioned Spark Market Research to conduct a study entitled "My So Called Covid Life". The findings of the BAI-funded research are grim. A total of 83% of respondents said their mental health has been negatively impacted by the pandemic. Worryingly, 73% who were affected mentally said they had yet to avail of any support service to help them better cope with their mental health concerns. This was the big takeaway for us. If they are feeling like this now how will they feel in six to 12 months if they have not availed of services. Also, seven out of ten respondents said they believed the Government does not understand their age group. They feel they are not being heard. The research indicates a clear disconnect between the Government and this demographic, with a quarter revealing they do not know who the Taoiseach is or believing that it is the Tánaiste, Deputy Leo Varadkar.

We asked students to describe their experiences in lockdown. They could have picked any positive or negative word. The four top words they chose to describe their experiences were "bored", "stressed", "depressed" and "anxious". They need help now more than ever. Sadly, they do not always know where to go or who to talk to. I want to share two examples with the committee of how radio stations have helped young people in the past year. Committee members are familiar with the work of SpunOut. We have worked with SpunOut to raise awareness of its new free text line 50808. This has been shared on every radio station in Ireland. It was great for us to hear that Ian Powers said that radio had directly help the organisation to successfully recruit hundreds of candidates to its volunteer programme.

The Spark research has also shown that young girls are really concerned about their future and have been emotionally impacted by the various lockdowns. Beat along with the other three leading youth radio stations - iRadio, Spin and Spin South West - all teamed up with the national social enterprise group The Shona Project in March and presented Shine 2021, which was the first of its kind. This was a virtual online event that targeted young women by young women. We had 40,000 registrations over three days with 80 female inspirational speakers from Ireland. The content was viewed over 1 million times across the three days. We saw this as a really good example that demonstrated the power of collaboration and joined-up thinking.

Youth radio is a powerful platform where youngsters are reaching out and letting our presenters know that they are hurting. We take our responsibility in this regard very seriously. Our presenters have been trained in HSE Safe Talk-Living Works Start suicide prevention programmes but we know from organisations like the National Youth Council of Ireland and SpunOut that youth services are grossly understaffed. As CEO of a youth station, if I am encouraging our Beat presenters to direct our valued and often vulnerable listeners to a service, I need to be confident their needs are going to be met when they pick up the phone or text the crisis text line. Consequently, the station 100% backs the call from the National Youth Council of Ireland for both a youth employment task force and a national lead for youth mental health.

We are sharing this data with the committee today so that the findings can hopefully help inform the Government's approach to further addressing young people's mental health in the future. The results also provide some external insight into which platforms should be used to communicate key messages to this crucial demographic. Unsurprisingly, TikTok secured top spot in the survey we conducted with Spark as the fastest growing social media network with 86% of 16-17 year olds highlighting that it is the app they now use the most on a daily basis. Beat has paid attention to this and now has over 200,000 followers on Tiktok. We are the leading radio station in Ireland on TikTok and we have used this in an effective way in the past few months where we have worked with county councils across the south east on a road safety awareness programme. This is just an example of how we can use these platforms to continue to connect with our audience, which is ever-changing and can be fickle at times. Ireland’s youth radio stations collectively target over 1 million listeners weekly and have over 3 million social media followers. Working collectively, we know early intervention will provide assistance to young people. For our part, as radio stations, we know we will do all we can to assist the relevant agencies provide a more targeted communications approach with this crucial demographic.