Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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I have a question for Ms O’Connor and Mr. Irwin on cyberbullying. Parents play an important role when it comes to bullying. When I was going to school, and it is still happening, there were students bullying teachers, students bullying students, and teachers bullying students. That happened, and it is still happening. It is one of the reasons I have such a huge interest in this. Parents have an important role to play here. If their son or daughter is identified as the bully, parents often do not want to know about it. They refuse to even engage with the school on it. Often, parents are slow to come forward when their son or daughter is being bullied because, maybe, they do not have the confidence to come to the school. Parents have a huge role here.

The other issue is educating parents on cyberbullying. I did a booklet a number of years ago, and I got the copyright from Deputy Alan Farrell. I gave it to schools. A huge number of schools came back to me afterwards, asking me to print more for parents. The amount of feedback I got back from parents was huge. I was blown away by it, because they did not understand Snapchat, Facebook, and maybe less Twitter. There were social media platforms that they were not aware of, as well as the meanings and the dangers of them.

The witnesses are dead right when they talk about parents. Parents have spoken to me about their children being on social media at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. I would not be able to operate the next day if I was up until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., or lying awake in bed at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., let alone a student who needs sleep. This is a huge problem. Could the witnesses give a tip on what this committee could do, or what could be done, to make parents more aware of the dangers of social media because I can tell them that parents' sons or daughters are not going to tell them about its dangers? They have to educate themselves. It is difficult to leave it up to the school principal or the board of management to make the parents aware of it, or to run public meetings, or whatever. Is there anything specific that the witnesses would like to add that would make parents more aware of the dangers of social media?