Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As politicians, sometimes we receive the same types of phone calls as the witnesses' organisation because people turn to us when they are in these situations as well. I have experienced it, but I was never trained in this regard, unfortunately. It is a serious situation and I thank the witnesses and their organisation for the work being done. It saves lives every day of the week and it is really important.

I have a few questions. How important is it that individual complaint mechanisms should be included in this Bill? I ask this because I attended a webinar yesterday in which Mr. Peter Tyndall, the Ombudsman, Dr. Karen McAuley, the head of policy-making for the Ombudsman for Children, and Ms Noeleen Blackwell, the chief executive officer of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, all participated. It was chaired by Ms Jillian van Turnhout. All those people insisted on the importance of an individual complaints mechanism, but it is not currently included in the Bill. The point made was that making individual complaints possible might allow systematic occurrences in this regard to be observed. The data could be extracted in that context and it would be very valuable to the bodies working in this area. I ask the witnesses to comment on that aspect.

The witnesses also outlined how important signposting is for people who have viewed harmful content online. Can more detail be given regarding how that process should work and what such a mechanism would look like? In addition, what mental health and well-being supports do the witnesses think should be in place for the workers who must respond to reports of online abuse? Often, the people on these platforms are just normal people like ourselves, but then they must deal with these difficult situations as well.