Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)

I thank the witnesses. It is important to have their input to this conversation.

Lots of interesting and good points were made.

I come from the north west of Roscommon. We have one of the oldest demographics in the country. All of these are matters I can relate to. Bridging the digital divide is something we have spoken about for years. I am very supportive of LEADER and local development companies and of trying to get additional support, through the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, and Europe, of trying to deliver the training that is needed to aid groups like this, and of SICAP and all of that. The technology is changing so fast. We need to give those people who reach a certain age every opportunity to take advantage of it. There are massive advantages available here. We talk about empowering people for independent living. AI could be a key driver in that.

Our guests all touched on individual points. While we, as public representatives, would have acknowledged them all at various stages, in the context of this demographic, I possibly did not think about matters in that way. Mr. Moynihan mentioned the Government's counter-disinformation strategy and how it has been criticised for failing to address harmful social media algorithms. Somebody else referred to deepfakes. I recall getting a phone call from a constituent in Roscommon recently enough who said he is a big supporter of a particular politician and asked if I knew how he could go about sending him the money he was looking for on social media. I was taken aback and was trying to figure out exactly what this elderly gentleman was talking about. It was one of these schemes whereby he was going to get a weekly return because he had obtained information online from a particular individual whom he trusted. I had to cut that off very quickly and tell him to block that thing.

If they do not get them through social media, there are WhatsApp messages and text messages. The opportunities are there and are abundant in every walk of life as to how this demographic is being taken advantage of or targeted. The witnesses made very good points that we will have to take on board when we are trying to produce a document at the end of this process. Mr. Moynihan also mentioned that we are lowest ranked in the EU in terms of e-health and citizens' access to information. A big message that all our guests have mentioned is that AI should only complement what is already there. Things should still be led by humans and should involve an interactive element. That very much came to the fore in our discussion with young people last week. It is great to see certain recommendations trending with the different demographics.

I like the idea of trying to use AI to improve applications for things like house adaptation grants, timely hospital discharges and so on. That is good. We have all been out to people's houses trying to help fill out these application forms. The witnesses are right to mention that sometimes when we are having a personal interaction, we have to ask for sensitive information that they might feel easier typing in if they had the opportunity.

Licensing is a major issue. It is something I am going to take away. When we have the tech companies in it may be something we can raise with them to see if they have some way around it, which would give the members of the organisations represented here access to these things collectively, or something like that, and in a cheaper way.

All our guests made some brilliant points. Ms Loftus said that users should be able to easily turn features on and off and decide who has access to their data. We got a very similar message from the young people last week. It is not age related, it is across the board, the issue of what our data is being used for. I took note that the explanations of what the data is being used for need to be targeted at the different age demographics they are engaging with at the time. That is another thing I will try to take away from this. I do not have any questions but I would like the witnesses to engage further with us and keep in touch. Their viewpoint and the groups they represent are going to be very important in assisting us in coming up with a proper strategy for tackling this.

I thank them.