Ms Jane McGarrigle:

I will take Deputy Neville through some of the details of PDST's current work plan. A major aspect of our activity is to create educational supports. Mr. Grehan outlined the resources we provide. We have in planning three curriculum resources, two of which are post-primary resources. We are working on one of these resources, which will be a junior cycle SPHE resource addressing the topic of online sexual exploitation and coercion. We are working on this in partnership with An Garda Síochána and it will comprise three lessons. The aim of the resource is to provide more awareness of the dangers of online sexual exploitation and coercion and offer support and advice for young people to enable them to recognise if they are being manipulated online and how they can protect themselves online. It is a follow-on from our Lockers resource on the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

The second post-primary resource we will work on will be on digital citizenship, which will cover responsible and ethical use of the Internet. We hope it will tie in with students doing a research project, for example, and will cover topical issues such as big data, how the Internet works and advertising. For primary level, we will do an introduction to the Internet, which will be aimed at third and fourth classes.

We also do considerable work with our colleagues in the professional development services for teachers. We are finalising a face-to-face support which, as Mr. Grehan stated, involves visits to schools to offer supports. We are finalising an introduction to Internet safety in the classroom, which support teachers will be able to avail of. This resource will provide advice and support to teachers who wish to use social media, for example, and showcase some of the resources we have available for teachers. Disseminating these resources and ensuring PDST and its resources are available to teachers will be a major part of our work. We will promote our resources and disseminate them to schools and various other organisations, for example, An Garda Síochána.We will continue to work on this.

To support the development of our resources, we will also engage in an online campaign in 2018 in respect of our sexual exploitation and coercion resource. This will be rolled out next year. We had a major success with the Forever video, which is identified in the opening statement. When we launched the video in 2016, it received more than 1.2 million views among parents, teachers and young people. This type of online awareness raising and targeting of teens directly on Facebook and Twitter is a very important part of our work. In addition to the campaign planned for 2018, we will do another campaign in 2019. We work closely with our colleagues in the Safe network to understand emerging trends. We have not yet nailed down a topic for the 2019 campaign but it will be selected closer to the time. By June 2018, we will probably have a better idea of the best topic to cover in the awareness campaign for 2019.

Public and media relations is another important part of our work. Mr. Grehan outlined our work on Safer Internet Day, which Webwise is responsible for promoting and co-ordinating. We will run an event on Safer Internet Day which takes place on the second day of the second month every year. This will include engaging in public and media relations around it, including for 2019.

Our website, Webwise.ie, is one of the main aspects of our work. The website is the hub or our activity and the point parents can access immediately if they are worried about an app they have encountered. They can find videos, information and advice and we also offer advice for teachers. All our resources can be accessed on the site and ordered for free. They are disseminated to schools nationwide. We have plans in place to develop various content for parents, teachers and young people through our watchyourspace.ie website which offers information and support for young people. We are supported by the work of our youth panel which helps us to develop different topics. That covers some of the areas of the work plan until 2019.

Mr. Grehan will comment on the open submissions for the next phases of the project and how it works.