Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be very quick. Everything said here today was critical and so important. As previous speakers have said, child protection is of utmost importance and we need more robust laws. Many of the questions I wanted to ask have been asked. I speak to families and children and, on that, can Ms Cooney and Ms Daly tell me what engagement they have had with the Department? This has become a huge issue for me and I am sure they are aware of it. Many schools or parents associations have to pay or provide funding for speakers to come and talk about cybersafety. What engagement have the witnesses had with the Department of Education about having this funded and implemented in schools? This is something that was asked of me by a parent recently. Critical thinking is not taught as a subject in schools. Do the witnesses think it should be, given the amount of AI and of misinformation online? Previous speakers have spoken about education and awareness. That is where you start. We can have all the policies in the world and all the legislation we want but unless there is an awareness out there and education, and the children and the families are taught how we do this, it does not matter. I am a firm believer in that.

My second question is to Ms Gallagher. This is again something we face daily and it is important. Children are more across AI than we are. Should our policies actually be dictated by children in this case? I will give two examples. One looks at the BT Young Scientist Exhibition. The members will be all aware of it because it is excellent. This affects every child and every school in the country. I had an intern in my office recently who participated and won a highly commended award. He is from the Tullow Community School and his project was about misinformation online. Another project from Tyndall College Carlow was on TikTok and about the pandemic and the threats to children online on that platform. Many of the projects this year focused on digital media. In fact, the winning project, of which I am sure we are all aware, was on AI in authorship. The children are already seeing the challenges. Should we, as policymakers, consult the children first and then the other stakeholders in this discussion? That is something we need to look at. Are parents trusting the technology too much? Do they need to be guided further regarding AI technology as well as the benefits in those cases where good work is being done? We know there is good work being done and all of us are here today for the right reasons. However, we need to start at the schools and with the families, provide the education and have an awareness. Children are so intelligent these days. As the speakers have said, this is about child protection and robust laws but we need to start at the early stages and schools can play a huge role in this. The teachers are excellent. Everybody wants the best here. Those are my questions. I do not know if any of them have been asked but these are things we are seeing on a daily basis. That is how we can make an impact. I thank the witnesses again. I thought today was very important.