Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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This is an important point and it is key to all the discussion we are having here. There is a lot of very good work going on in Education and Skills. It is one of the most innovative Departments in this area, not just in Ireland but also across Europe. We can learn a lot from what is going on in our schools and we need to bring this out to the community. I spoke to a parent this morning who gave me an example of the transition year students in St. Colmcille's community school in Knocklyon. They have taken what is going on in the classroom and in the school and they have educated the parents of the pupils around what is available for blocking and so on. I took this issue up with Google management when they were in Dublin recently. They have developed the family link project within Google that does this very thing. It provides the facility to give control to parents around what they will and will not allow their children to access online. We have to use technology. The tools are there. The open policy forum is about seeing what works well and how it can be applied across society.