Ms Grainia Long:

If I could leave the committee with a thought it would be that while there is a real fear that technology and phones are a risk to children, I would think of it in a different way. It is the people who have always tried to access children for exploitative or abusive reasons who are using technology as a tool. That is the way they are doing it today. When I spoke earlier I told the members to think differently and separate the illegal behaviour from the harmful behaviour. Unfortunately, there are predators who will try to access children for exploitative or criminal means and they will use technology to do that. It is our job to make it very difficult for them to do it. That is where the law and a strong regulatory approach comes in. It will be a complex task and it will take time, but we must do it because ten years from now we will wonder how we did not see that children would be more exposed. The behaviour of predators is changing. They are using technology as a faster way to access children. As Ms O'Sullivan said, the Garda has given some frightening examples of conversations between children and young people who, within three to four minutes of the person saying "hello" to a child, sex was being mentioned; in some cases it was far sooner than that.

In terms of what can be done, the Garda has a very important role. We have had some very good conversations with gardaí about the potential of running a national campaign. It is their view, and ours, that the gardaí are recognised by children and young people as the law enforcement organisation and something we, or Childline, could do is go into schools to talk to children and young people so that they understand the dangers. As Ms O'Sullivan said, many young people are too scared or ashamed to talk about this issue.

There are practical things parents can do, and we said this in January.

Parents buy phones and tablets before Christmas. We tell them that Christmas is a busy time and that, when life has slowed down in January, they should return to their providers and ask them to help set controls on devices. We should get that message out in as simple a way as possible. One set of controls is handled through an Internet service provider, whereby access to the web at home is controlled, and another set of controls is on the handset itself. We tell parents that they should take a breath in the new year, set those controls and educate themselves. If they do not understand how to do that, they should ask their providers to do so. Many of the providers with whom we have spoken have told us that they are more than happy to help set up controls for customers who bought devices from them.

As was alluded to, children and young people themselves have told us that they want to be safe. Why would any child not want to be safe? Parents should sit down with the young person. Older siblings are helpful in this regard. For example, 16, 17 or 18 year olds can set controls for children.

It is right to say that practical and immediate actions are necessary, but I would love to see a national campaign. We need to start opening parents' consciousness without scaring them, because if people get scared, they stop making the right decisions. We should tell them that they have more choices and ability than they realise. They can ask their providers for help and speak to their older children or older children in the neighbourhood, young people and students who are attending university. That might help to open up the situation.

We were asked what the office of a digital safety commissioner would do and what the legislative gaps would be. As the LRC stated, that office should have a strong relationship with the Children's Ombudsman, who would have a role to play in this matter. The digital safety commissioner's office would have an educational role. It could run national campaigns regularly in the same way as the Road Safety Authority, which does a fantastic job at running safety campaigns at various points in the year. It is running one this week because it is the mid-term break and children are off school, so people should drive carefully in highly developed residential areas. The "Office of the Digital Safety Commissioner" is a very technical term, so it could be called something else and be made an open and educational office. I like the idea of having children and young people involved. They would have to be because that is the only way it can be done.