Ms Fiona Jennings:

Categorically, we need to have online safety, digital literacy and digital competency embedded into the education system. There have been fantastic strides with different initiatives, but they really do not go far enough. I would push it further. Professor Geoffrey Shannon, the former special rapporteur for child protection, would have said we even need age appropriate messages at preschool level. This is something that is not going away. We need to prepare our workforce for the jobs of tomorrow, some of which have not even been created yet. They need to be able to live and succeed in this environment. Webwise has fantastic resources in terms of its online safety programmes. Unfortunately, not every school takes them up. That is something we would certainly champion. Bullying and cyberbullying were mentioned. The Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020 was passed, and again it is about creating awareness of these things. Mr. Power mentioned the much-fought-for individual complaints mechanism amendment to the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill. We very much hope that gets passed. It would certainly be a safety net for children and young people as well. It is great having all of those things there, but we need to create better awareness of them for those who need them most. However, online safety really does need to be embedded into the education system.