Ms Noeline Blackwell:

I thank the Deputy for his question. There are a few things we can do. In addition to the European wallet that is being developed to try to ensure that children under a certain age cannot access things, the Government's information office is trying to produce an Irish version because the European digital wallet assumes that you have a national identity card. One of the things we can do is try to make sure that that comes in quickly.

In terms of legislation, this committee covers all the various areas because AI covers all these areas. There is a problem that Tusla and the Department of children need to be resourced to make sure there are up-to-date child protection systems in place. In the same way that children who see abuse offline can use those systems, they need to be available in respect of online as well.

We need to look at legislation around what do we do with what is there right now. There is some provision that where we have evidence that systems are not working, national authorities can do something but Coimisiún na Meán, the media regulator, needs to be resourced to collect that evidence. There is currently legislation that there should be an individual complaints mechanism, which Coimisiún na Meán is considering and looking at but it has not put it in place. That would allow children to complain directly to the regulator rather than just going through a big, long process. These are things that this committee could look at that would be really valuable for the future development of children's rights.