Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)

I apologise in advance for my rudeness because I will have to ask the questions and then run. I must be over on the other side of the campus in three minutes. I will watch back the answers. Today has been hugely helpful. It is clear there are ways in which we consider the needs of older people and there are ways in which we do not. This area is a huge timebomb. Recently we saw with the beds in sheds the potential for the unintended consequence of people being pushed out of their own homes by younger generations in their family through this type of leniency in regulation.

We speak about financial abuse but I do not think we speak about digital abuse, or it is certainly not in the common domain. We need to start thinking about this because in the age of AI, when all of this is turbocharged, there are so many ways in which older people, and anybody on the wrong side of the digital divide, are vulnerable and the potential for exploitation and abuse is huge.

I want to ask specifically about scamming. Recently I listened to a podcast series, "Scam Inc.", which was released by The Economist. I would recommend it to anybody. It describes the transfer of wealth into the scam industry, which is now as big as the drugs trade globally. It is absolutely huge. Of course, we know the concentration of wealth in our population around the globe is with older people so they are the primary target. Technology is being used, and AI is being increasingly used, to make it more sophisticated as an industry in and of itself. Do the witnesses hear about this? I know there is so much shame around the reporting of it. It is all based around relationship development with people who, perhaps, are lonely or just human and have a vulnerability. Does anybody have experience from among their members? I apologise as I must run across campus. If the witnesses give their answers I will watch them back.