Mr. Ian Power:

In respect of online safety, the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022 that is currently working its way through the Houses is a really important step to grapple with some of these issues.

We support it fully and we really welcome in particular the Minister's recent proposed amendment to the Bill to include an individual complaints mechanism for people. We saw yesterday at a meeting of international online safety regulators that the Australian online safety regulator talking about an issue that is coming up more and more for us. That is young men who have been contacted online by another young person, whether a man or woman, and they exchange images which are used to extort that young man. Unfortunately, we have lots of experience recently of young men across Ireland reaching out to both our live chat and texting services in that scenario, where they are embarrassed and worried and just do not know what to do. We need a resource like the online safety regulator for young people to go to that would require an immediate take down of that type of content, particularly where platforms do not respond. We are particularly worried obviously about Twitter where there have been lots of lay offs in the last two weeks, not only of its own staff, but 4,500 of the 5,500 moderators were let go at the weekend. Issues like that may seem ethereal and removed but there are young people in rural areas across the country experiencing those issues, and that is something that really needs to be addressed quickly.

The next thing is for young people to have access to supports to navigate those issues. Again, it is about emphasising the need for in-school supports so they have someone to talk to when those issues come up for young people.