Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs

Cybersecurity for Children and Young Adults: Discussion

9:00 am

Photo of Catherine NooneCatherine Noone (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations and I am sorry I was late. I keep on top of this topic and raise it in the Seanad a lot. I wonder if initiatives run by CyberSafeIreland could be State funded, or if some level of cybersafety education in schools would be a better approach. Which of those two options would the ISPCC favour?

What can be done to encourage parents to supervise their children? It sounds like a basic question but do we need to have such supervision? There is a lot of awareness now and it is covered in the media more, but are parents really engaging with it? They are busy themselves and children are ahead of adults generally on this topic. How do we alert parents to the gravity of the situation? Do we need to link in some sort of national information campaign?

I have done some work on how advertising targets children concerning obesity and alcohol consumption.

It seems that many companies use social media and the available software to target children. Should we impose a restriction to prevent that practice in our legislation? Should we insist that the software is used instead to avoid targeting children? Can we make companies do so?

Tusla has been in the eye of the storm for the past while. Is Tusla capable of managing this matter? Do we need a one-stop-shop on cybersafety to protect children? We do not need more agencies. I am interested in hearing the views of the witnesses on this matter, without being too hard on Tusla.