Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party)
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I thank the Chair. I would not normally ask to do this but we have an important issue in the Committee on Environment and Climate Action as well and I always feel like I am juggling these two committees and important topics.

I have not been a teacher and I have come from a self-learning background. There are probably no fewer people now who cannot think for themselves than there were previously. It is not to do with social media but it is to do with the education system and that is why we are here. I have kids who are generation Z and generation alpha. YSI is being a leader and the results of what it is doing will be seen by generation alpha because they are the ones who were born in 2010 and after, and as the witnesses have said, it is about getting to people early. They are all looking at "Love Island" and all of those things and they are seeing what is coming up on Instagram around those people. There are many more pressures on boys now than there ever were before. I never experienced that when I was young and it was all about girls and women and what they looked like. There was not the same professionalism in sport before but people are in the gym all day long now because they get paid for it and then young boys are expected to behave like that. I admire that Mr. Rawson brought that point up because he is doing a huge service for an awful lot of boys and young men out there. Part of what I wanted to say is to ask what our young guests can do as advocates. It should not just be about changing the system and we have a number of opportunities that I would love to come back in on. There are opportunities for us to have young people mentoring young people and to do so throughout our education system so that it is not, as was said, about older people like me talking to young people.

I am conscious that Senator Flynn wants to come in and I want to make sure that she can so I will ask my other question and then allow her to come back in. We have a number of Bills going through the Houses and I am more than willing to speak to the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, on behalf of our guests on the ideas they have around online imagery. We have the online Bill coming before the Seanad the week after next and I will bring up those ideas with the Minister. Maybe there is an opportunity to do it through the commissioner rather than just through legislation. We should leave it with the commissioner to decide what we should do.

There is also the matter of education, which is separate in some ways, and the education system needs to be changed. I know our guests are here to talk about their programme but any time I ask anyone who comes in here about transition year, including officials and Department staff, I say that schools in general should look more like transition year. We need to have mentors and these opportunities for young people in every school year, not just in one year out of their lives. They constantly revert to the idea that we should do that during transition year. Is there a recommendation I can come out with from this committee to show how this can be done in first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth years? I would love to hear our guests' ideas around that. I am sorry that I have to run to the other committee and I thank our guests.