Dr. Karen McAuley:

The Deputy mentioned that explicit provision has not been made in the general scheme for the appointment of an online safety commissioner. As outlined in our submission, we understand the reasons for that. To ensure that the legislation is agile and to future-proof it as far as possible, our preference would be for explicit provision to be made for an online safety commissioner.

Regarding children's participation, our initial submission in 2019 strongly encouraged the Department to include children and young people in its work to develop the current legislative proposals. We are disappointed that has not occurred. Equally, we very much welcome that the committee invited young people to appear before it last week. If there is scope, given that this legislation has the distance to travel, we would really like to see children and young people being afforded a child-friendly opportunity to be able to express their views and concerns in respect of the legislation prior to it being enacted. Equally, when the commission is set up, we would hope that children and young people, as very important stakeholders, would be consulted about the work of the commission.