Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Devereux for her opening statement. It referenced the survey, the statistics from which are quite alarming. I cannot put my finger on a specific statistic but I certainly saw them. For example, 20% of parents supervise their children's online usage, 25% of children have come across harmful material and 11% have received sexual content. Were these percentages out of 200 or thereabouts, or am I referencing a different survey? I believe it was in Lauren's opening remarks. I am sorry I will not put her on the spot. The point is that I would really love to see statistics because this is how I base my opinions on what works best. I am not the sort of person to think that it is a good thing to take something away from an environment where it could be helpful. I would not be in favour of banning mobile phones completely, but, as Ms Devereux has rightly pointed out, there is an absolute necessity for education, even for the little things. I would not expect there would be very much sexting going on in the schoolyard at break time, but that is not to say that something might not be shared, which can be very damaging to the individual involved. However, I am not sure about banning phones. I tend to concur with Ms Devereux's observation about the use of phones by students in France. I thank her for that.