Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 11 May 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

School Bullying and the Impact on Mental Health: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Philip Arneill:

The Deputy is quoting our statistics at us and that is absolutely right. This is why we are coming from the education side because the reality is that kids are on there. Yes, there are age restrictions in place but, clearly, as we can see from the figure of 65% of kids being on there already, they are not working. We are firmly in favour of stronger regulation. We believe it is simply not working to have social media companies restricting and regulating themselves. That is why we are very much in favour of the online safety commissioner and we would like that office and that commissioner to have the teeth that we believe they should have, including an individual complaints mechanism, which would also address things like cyberbullying. Individuals would be in a position to complain to the commissioner and to have that content removed, rather than trying to take on huge social media giants like Facebook or Twitter and clearly coming up against a brick wall.