Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I was watching for a while and apologise for being late, but I was at another meeting.

First, my own view - and I have been quite vocal on it - is that we need to put minimum ages on access to social media accounts for children. The reality is that there have been various reports published which say that kids as young as eight or nine years of age have access and open accounts. They are not being put on by their parents; they are actually able to open the account. Responsibility needs to be put on all social media companies to put the proper security procedures in place. Significant profits are being made from the business, and there is a responsibility on the companies to safeguard our children. That is their responsibility as companies that have put their platforms out there.

There is also a responsibility on parents. I am not trying to abdicate that, and I am speaking as a parent of three young kids who is quite afraid of what is ahead for kids. My own child, my oldest young lad, is 12. Thank God he is the only child in his class who does not have access to a phone. All the rest of them have, and are on all the various platforms. Snapchat, you name it. They are sending photographs from there. It is critical that the responsibility is put on the companies by Coimisiún na Meán, and I have put that forward on a number of occasions. We need to put a minimum age of at least 16 years of age to allow children any access to any of the platforms.

The witnesses are in here speaking to politicians. We are talking about hate, and we are the subject of it. Every one of us here have been subjects of it. What way do social media companies deal with stuff that is targeted at those in public life? Do they treat us differently from the general public? The reality is they do. The companies do not treat us correctly or protect us, and we are the people who are in public life, putting our faces out there.

More directly to Facebook or Meta, does it have a policy that gives more protection to the general public than those in public life? Does it allow people to put up knowingly false information, whether it is about negative character and ability claims, sexual orientation, gender identity or anything negative about them? Does Meta have a policy to allow that to stay on its platform, if it is somebody who is in political life, whereas it would be taken down if it was a private individual?