Ms Eileen Leahy:

The recommendation on the digital safety commissioner follows from a number of reports in this area. There was a report by the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications in 2013. Then, under the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, which had a different name at the time, the ICGAG report made a number of recommendations. The Law Reform Commission has quite a substantial report from September 2016. There are a number of common themes in all of those reports and, based on our experience, we largely concur with them. There is a need for more awareness-raising and more targeted formal education programmes. We are told this through our partner bodies as well. An integrated oversight office on a statutory basis would be important. The Office for Internet Safety is within the Department of Justice and Equality. It was a good start. The Department will always retain that focus on the criminal law aspect and will develop it and take advice from An Garda Síochána and the other players in the judicial system in terms of what needs to come forward. The two staff do not have an investigative role; their role is not in that sphere. We are very much dependent on the partnership we have with other bodies. The regulated takedown system and the criminal element of it would probably remain with the Department of Justice and Equality.

The strengthened advisory group is something that has come through in all the reports. We have an advisory group which works but all the reports recommend it should be much broader and that it should include a youth voice and more industry partners. The UK strategy and Green Paper is very much along the same lines. What the UK has currently is much broader than what we have. That is something that comes across. We also need the development of a national strategy that encompasses all of that. As CyberSafeIreland acknowledged, which Department one goes to is an issue. We are all involved in it. It is a whole-of-Government issue.