Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Chairman and I thank the assistant commissioner. I have heard some negative stories from people who report online harassment to An Garda Síochána. I note from the assistant commissioner’s statement that An Garda Síochána endeavours to ensure personnel throughout the organisation are aware of, and are appropriately trained and equipped to deal in an appropriate manner with tackling, online-related crime. Is there a knowledge gap in An Garda Síochána when it comes to online safety?

My second question is to ask the assistant commissioner to outline the process adopted when a person is subjected to a torrent of online abuse from numerous possibly anonymous accounts where one abusive comment may be made but collectively there are hundreds of other accounts. What steps does An Garda Síochána take to try to help a person in that case?

I am interested in hearing if the assistant commissioner has anything to say about the prevalence of cyberstalking or harassment online. Restraining orders only go as far as to restrain a person from the family home and most of these cases would come under harassment under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. Anecdotally, I hear that most young people would be of the belief that cyberstalking or cyberharassment is still rampant. Has the assistant commission anything to say on that issue?