Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 29 January 2026
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Equality
Safety and Well-being of Children Online: Discussion (Resumed)
2:00 am
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Apologies have been received from Deputies John Connolly and Grace Boland and Senator Nikki Bradley.
The agenda item for consideration this morning is a discussion on technology, social media and children, with a particular focus on the safety and well-being of children online. We are resuming this topic today. From An Garda Síochána we are joined by Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis, organised and serious crime, and Detective Superintendent Pat Ryan of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau. You are very welcome. We have Mr. Timmy Hammersley, head of participation and rights education, and Ms Ciara Gill, senior policy officer, from the Office of the Ombudsman for Children. You are both very welcome. We have Mr. Jeremy Godfrey, executive chairperson, and Ms Karen McAuley, director of policy for children and vulnerable adults, from Coimisiún na Meán. You are very welcome. Good morning also to Ms Fiona Jennings, head of policy and public affairs, and Ms Aoife Griffin, services manager, from the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Mr. Anthony Kilcoyne is the divisional director of digital technologies, Oide Technology in Education. Ms Jane McGarrigle is the national co-ordinator of Webwise, Department of Education and Youth. You are all very welcome to the meeting. I wish to advise all present that an invitation to participate in the meeting did issue to Ms Caoilfhionn Gallagher, Ireland's special rapporteur on child protection but unfortunately due to other diary commitments she is not in a position to attend and sends her sincere apologies.
Before we begin I have a few housekeeping matters to go through. In advance of inviting our witnesses to deliver their opening statements I want to advise them of the following in relation to parliamentary privilege. They are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentation they make to the committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege. It is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
Witnesses will be allocated three minutes of speaking time to deliver their opening statement. That will be followed by a questions and answers session with our members. I will call on the witnesses in the following order: Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis, Mr. Timmy Hammersley, Mr. Jeremy Godfrey, Ms Fiona Jennings and Ms Jane McGarrigle. I now invite the witnesses to deliver their opening statements.
Ms Angela Willis:
I thank the committee for the invitation. I am the assistant commissioner with responsibility for organised and serious crime in An Garda Síochána. I am joined by my colleague Detective Superintendent Pat Ryan from the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau.
Online platforms offer benefits for learning, creativity, communication and social connection. However, they also present serious and evolving risks. From a policing perspective, we see daily how online harms can translate into very real consequences for children, families and communities. The online threat landscape targeting children is growing in both scale and sophistication, presenting unprecedented challenges for law enforcement. Risks now extend beyond traditional concerns such as online grooming, cyberbullying and exposure to inappropriate content, encompassing more sinister forms of exploitation through social media and gaming platforms. Technology has increased the scale, speed and anonymity with which offenders can operate, often across jurisdictions, making prevention and enforcement more complex. As recently reported, offenders are leveraging artificial intelligence tools to produce hyper-realistic deepfake child sexual abuse imagery and videos. These crimes are not unique to Ireland.
An Garda Síochána continues to adapt to these challenges. We have specialist units dedicated to the investigation of online child exploitation, cybercrime and victim identification, working closely with international law enforcement partners. We also place a strong emphasis on education and prevention. Through our schools programme and community engagement, gardaí work with children, parents and educators to promote digital literacy, online safety and responsible behaviour. An Garda Síochána remains committed to tackling all forms of online crime, including those targeting children.
One of the most challenging and critical areas of our work is victim identification. In this regard, the online child exploitation unit has the critical role of identifying, investigating and disrupting online child exploitation activities, in response to referrals received from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC. In parallel, the specialist victim identification teams review child sexual abuse and exploitation videos and images on devices seized as part of criminal investigations in an effort to identify victims and suspects in Ireland and globally. During 2025, An Garda Síochána identified and safeguarded 151 children, 16 of whom were located in Ireland. The operating environment in such investigations is technical and complex. In 2024 and 2025, An Garda Síochána, supported by Europol, hosted international training on combating online sexual exploitation of children. Garda members, along with police from 35 international jurisdictions, attended and further training is planned for 2026.
Preventing children from becoming victims of online harm is the ultimate aim of An Garda Síochána. It is important to emphasise that protecting children from online harm requires a layered approach combining legislation, regulation, policy, education and enforcement. No single measure is sufficient or effective on its own and, therefore, a co-ordinated, child-centred approach ensures that technology enhances children’s lives without compromising their safety.
In conclusion, An Garda Síochána is committed to working collaboratively with this committee, with Government Departments, regulators, industry and civil society to ensure that children can benefit from technology while being protected from harm. Our shared goal must be an online environment where children are safe, supported and able to thrive. We look forward to engaging with the committee.
Mr. Timmy Hammersley:
I thank the Chair and members of the committee. Before I begin, I want to let them know that I can, at times, be challenged by speech and if I get a block to not be surprised. I will regain it pretty quickly. I apologise on behalf of the Ombudsman for Children, who was due to be here today but is unable to attend due to a prior engagement. I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it today on the topic of technology, social media and children with a focus on the safety and well-being of children online, from a child rights perspective.
The Ombudsman for Children is an independent statutory organisation with a core role to promote and protect the rights and welfare of children under 18. In the online world, this role is increasingly shaped by children’s experiences online - experiences that bring significant opportunities and serious risks of harm. The online environment plays a huge role in children’s education, communication, creativity, play and participation in wider society. Children consistently tell us that the online spaces allows them to express themselves and feel heard. However, they also tell us that this same space exposes them to harm, including grooming, hate speech, extremist content, harmful algorithms, inappropriate advertising and the growing risks linked to artificial intelligence.
Ireland has taken important steps in recent years, including the establishment of Coimisiún na Meán and the introduction of online safety codes. However, our evidence suggests that the current framework does not provide a clear regulatory environment that ensures online platforms fully respect children’s rights. Too much discretion remains with these companies.
Our most recent school survey found that 73% of young people believe social media companies need to be far more proactive in how they take care of children. Some 63% of respondents have encountered extremist views online. This figure is stark and deeply concerning to us.
The Office of the Ombudsman for Children strongly believes that all online safety policies must be rooted in children’s rights, as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children’s rights apply online as they do offline. Regulation must therefore balance protection with children’s rights to participation, privacy, access to information, education and play.
This statement has been developed by engagement with our youth advisory panel, whose members consistently tell us way more has to be done. Education alone is not the answer. Children do not want to be excluded from the online world – they want to feel fully part of it. We urge the committee to support a child rights by design approach to regulation, to strengthen children’s participation in wider decision-making and to ensure that Ireland’s online future places children’s rights, safety and well-being at its core.
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
I thank the committee for the invitation to attend today. Unfortunately, our online safety commissioner at Coimisiún na Meán, Niamh Hodnett, has been taken ill so I am attending in her place. She sends her sincere apologies. I am executive chairperson of Coimisiún na Meán and I am joined by Karen McAuley, our director of policy for children and vulnerable adults.
Central to our work since our establishment has been the development of the online safety framework which came into full force in July of last year. It consists of three pieces of legislation: the EU Digital Services Act; EU terrorist content online regulation; and the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022 which is the basis for our online safety code. Under the online safety framework, we hold platforms to account with regards to their obligations to keep users safe online. This includes the obligation to risk-assess services and mitigate those risks to ensure they do not cause harm. Platforms are obliged to remove illegal content once it has been reported to them. All platforms have to protect the safety, security and privacy of children online. Specific obligations exist for video-sharing platforms to restrict video content which is harmful to children or incites hatred or violence on grounds of protected characteristics, terrorism and child sex abuse material. They must have parental controls, and platforms that allow adult content, such as pornography and extreme violence, must put in place effective age-assurance measures. We will have further responsibilities under the AI Act, including in relation to prohibited AI practices.
Children can be exposed to inappropriate content through AI recommender systems or chatbots. Generative AI can be used to create child sexual abuse material, CSAM, and non-consensual intimate imagery.
We share the public’s concerns about Grok and nudifcation apps. This issue impacts law enforcement as well as regulation. We are working closely with the European Commission to address compliance and we are liaising with An Garda Síochána. We have opened investigations into several platforms regarding their compliance with the EU Digital Services Act and are supporting the European Commission’s investigations.
We want children to enjoy the benefits of being online while being better protected from harms. Our website provides information about a range of support services available for children and resources for parents, teachers and young people, including how-to-report videos and guides. It also includes videos and lesson plans, which we developed with Webwise and shared with schools. We recently launched a national awareness campaign for parents and young people on the right to report harmful online content to the platform where they see it. If they are not happy with the outcome, they can contact our contact centre by phone or email. The campaign is supported by the Department of Health and will run to the end of February.
We have established a youth advisory committee which we engage with on a wide range of matters so that the views of young people inform our work. It played a crucial role in the development of our online safety code aimed at ensuring harmful content such as cyberbullying, the promotion of eating and feeding disorders, self-harm and suicide and dangerous challenges are addressed. We have published research into various matters, including an online harms report and a report on audience attitudes to harmful and offensive media content. We will continue to build on this research. As online safety is a whole-of-society issue, we work closely with a wide range of stakeholders, including the organisations present today.
We thank the committee again for inviting us. Significant work has been undertaken to put in place the building blocks for regulation with regard to children and online safety. We will continue to build on this.
We are happy to take questions from members.
Ms Fiona Jennings:
I thank the Chair and committee members for inviting the ISPCC today. We welcome the committee’s examination of this important matter and note the efforts of other Oireachtas committees on aspects of online safety. We also welcome the many legislative and regulatory changes Ireland has brought about in recent years. The pace and intensity at which the digital environment is evolving - largely with the rules playing catch-up - rightly warrants Government attention.
The ISPCC’s mission is to protect childhood. We provide services to children and young people while also advocating for their right to access a safe digital environment where they can thrive. The ever-evolving digital landscape means that parents face unprecedented challenges in keeping their children safe. To meet these needs, the ISPCC is currently developing a parenting hub that will provide reliable and topical advice, support and guidance. We are pleased with our research partnerships that allow us to develop innovative and solution-focused responses that meaningfully validate the rights of young people. We are also a proud and long-standing partner in the Irish Safer Internet Centre. I understand the committee will hear more about this work next week.
The ISPCC’s overriding concern is that we are entering a new iteration of self-regulation, one where it is the responsibility of the end-user to regulate their experience online. This shifts the pendulum of burden onto them. They must control their screen time while facing powerful algorithms designed to keep their attention. They must teach their children to be safe online and put parental controls in place while grappling with constantly evolving technology. They must report harmful content while never knowing if it has made a difference.
Our key recommendations include that child helplines be positioned and supported as the first port of call for those who want to talk about online safety issues. This aligns with the EU position under the safer Internet project and ensures that children can always reach out to a supportive listener 24-7. We also recommend that safe and ethical design of products and services aimed at and used by minors be enforced, as we firmly believe that flawed design is at the very core of most of the problems we see online. We further recommend that a targeted national awareness and signposting campaign for parents and carers on online safety be developed.
Our main child safety and well-being online concerns are based on what children and parents have reached out to us about. They include child grooming, where children are being contacted by adults online who try to move them from open, public online spaces to encrypted ones where their vulnerability is heightened. Through our GroSafe research project, we know that in a gaming environment it can take 45 minutes for a grooming situation to develop, but this can be as little as 19 seconds. Another challenge is access to harmful content and problematic technologies From our nlight research project with the Technological University, TU, Dublin, we know that accounts of 13-year-olds received higher levels of harmful content across most platforms than accounts of 18-year-olds.
The continuing focus on technologies that serve no public good, such as so-called nudification apps, causes great concern, especially in terms of gender equality and peer-to-peer relations. Such content skews children's sense of self and relationship expectations. It intimates that girls are there to be controlled, manipulated and abused. Cyberbullying remains an omnipresent aspect of children’s lives and continues to feature in the most talked about issues online. Turning to excessive screen time, parents and young people struggle to find effective strategies to control screen time. A recent study by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, RCSI, found that high social media usage of more than four hours per day was associated with increased poor mental health risk in adolescents.
We remind the committee that most children have quite positive experiences online, ones that support their well-being. More can be done and more ought to be done to ensure children are better, happier and safer. I thank members for their attention. We are happy to answer any questions they may have.
Ms Jane McGarrigle:
I thank the Chair and committee members for the opportunity to appear before them today. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Anthony Kilcoyne, divisional director of digital technologies, Oide Technology in Education. Webwise, which is funded by the Department of Education and Youth and co-funded by the European Union, is the Irish Internet safety awareness centre and part of the Irish Safer Internet Centre. Our mission is to empower children and young people to safely and confidently navigate the online world through education, awareness raising and provision of practical supports for teachers, children and families.
Webwise develops curriculum-aligned primary and post-primary school resources to integrate online safety and digital citizenship into teaching and learning. We will soon launch switched on, a new digital citizenship education programme for fifth and sixth class pupils, supported by Coimisiún na Meán. This programme consists of eight modules addressing healthy digital habits, mis- and disinformation, digital footprint, data literacy, rights online and more. Webwise also collaborates with Oide Technology in Education on the provision of free online courses for teachers, a digital citizenship champions programme involving 80 primary school teachers and further supports. Recognising the critical role of parents and guardians, Webwise conducts national media awareness campaigns targeting parents. Advice and information is also provided through our parents hub.
Ahead of today’s hearing, Webwise consulted 34 members of our youth advisory panel. This is what they had to say on the matter. While most young people said they felt somewhat safe online, negative experiences were widespread. The most common issue reported was exposure to upsetting or harmful content, including self-harm material, hate speech and extreme violence. Scams were also a routine risk. Other concerns included exclusion from online groups and receiving unwanted sexual messages. There is a strong lack of trust in online platforms among the panel. The majority of the members of the youth panel felt that platforms are not doing enough to protect children and young people.
The consultation also explored young people’s perspectives on a potential social media ban for under-16s. While 20% supported an outright ban, 80% were against it. Those in favour of a ban raised serious concerns about harmful content, mental health impacts and excessive screen time. Those against a ban shared concerns about those risks while emphasising that social media plays an important role in learning, connection, news and entertainment. Many argued that banning access would fail to address underlying problems such as mis- and disinformation, cyberbullying and harmful content, and could push young people into less regulated online spaces. Instead, they would like to see stricter enforcement of age limits, particularly for under-13s; safety by design measures that prioritise their safety, protect their privacy and reduce harmful content; and better education for young people and parents.
Our key recommendations include education. Further embedding digital media literacy across the curriculum from an early age is essential. Young people consistently call for more regular and meaningful education on online safety. This should be supported by professional learning for teachers, beginning at pre-service level. We also recommend supporting parents, guardians and families. Parents and families are struggling to keep informed on this issue and it can be incredibly overwhelming. Further targeted support is required for those most in need, through sustained, co-ordinated national campaigns and integration with existing family-facing services such as early childhood settings, health centres and community organisations.
Turning to AI developments and children, in the context of online safety, recent developments of AI tools pose new challenges and raise serious concerns. In the absence of enforceable safeguards, AI systems expose children to inappropriate content, undermine privacy and autonomy, profile or discriminate unfairly or reinforce harmful social dynamics. Child-centred design needs to be a guiding principle from the outset in AI products, platforms and services. This also needs to be supported by robust regulation and enforcement. Children and young people must be meaningfully consulted and actively involved in decisions that affect them, ensuring solutions are age-appropriate, effective and grounded in their lived experiences.
I thank members for their attention. We are happy to answer any questions they may have.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Gabhaim buíochas le Ms McGarrigle and all the witnesses for their opening statements. It is proposed the opening statements be published on the committee website. Is that agreed? Agreed.
Before I call members, I remind them that they will be allocated seven minutes. Speaking time in this allocation must include the response from the witnesses. If Mr. Hammersley needs a little bit of extra time, that is no problem and we can facilitate that. I will allow a brief second round of questioning. However, members should indicate to me if they wish to ask additional questions. I also ask members, when putting their questions, that they strictly adhere to the agenda topic under consideration at this meeting. Given that we have many witnesses this morning, it would be helpful for them to direct their questions to specific witnesses.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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We are very privileged to have so many experts here in the room to discuss such an important and socially timely issue. I thank all the witnesses for taking time from what I am sure are very busy schedules to be here to share their experiences and expertise. I will be very ambitious with my time and will try to frame my questions so that I can get yes-no answers if possible to try to hear as many voices as I can. I would love a yes-no answer from every group represented here today, possibly in the order they gave their opening statements. Is the State sufficiently armed to protect children's safety online?
Ms Angela Willis:
I do not think it is as simple as a yes-no answer. We are all dealing with a rapidly evolving environment. As I mentioned in my opening statement, a layered approach is required. We have very honest and productive working relationships not only within this jurisdiction but also within the European Union and further afield globally. We rely heavily on police-to-police contact in the investigations that we undertake. We come in with the investigative process at the very end and that is post harm having occurred. That layered approach combining the regulation, legislation, etc., along the way is required. We work within the legislation available to us.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is there a gap in that legislation?
Ms Angela Willis:
We have absolutely sufficient legislative power available to us to investigate child sexual abuse material. The production, the circulation and the generation of child sexual abuse material, whether through an AI-generated mechanism or not, is prohibited. When it gets to intimate image abuse, we need to have a complainant and we also need for that material to have been circulated. There are offences there but we work within the legislation that is provided.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Does anyone else wish to speak about the legislative supports that the State has or does not have? Are there any other opinions on the ability to protect children's safety online?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
A whole lot of new tools to our online safety framework came into full force last July. That is also part of a European context. Some of the platforms that children use, like Snapchat and Roblox, are not headquartered in Ireland. We are working with our counterparts in those cases in the Netherlands and the European Commission to make sure they are properly regulated. We have not yet seen the full benefit of the existing tools. I am sure that we will find gaps in them as we use them. One that we have identified and that we are talking to the Government about is investigative powers and information-gathering powers before opening formal investigations. Those things may come to members in the legislative proposal quite soon. By and large we need to get on and enforce the things we have and then we will be in a position to judge whether there are major gaps.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is Mr. Godfrey suggesting that Coimisiún na Meán would have the opportunity to be proactive in going in and looking at issues as opposed to waiting for a formal complaint?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
We are proactive and we do go and look at issues. Depending on the legislation we are looking at, we have formal powers to compel people to produce information. It is a bit mixed. We have more powers under the online safety code and not quite such good powers under the Digital Services Act. We would like to get those all aligned so that we can force people to answer our questions at an earlier stage.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Are we going to hold platforms to account with regard to what they say they do versus what ultimately they do not do in practice?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
There are investigations now open. On Monday, the European Commission opened an investigation into Grok as a result of recent events. We had worked very closely with the European Commission in gathering information to get to the point where it opened an investigation. Now we are associated with carrying out that investigation. That is one way of holding them to account. Because it is an open investigation, I will not say much more about it. We have opened a number of other investigations into things like how easy it is for people to report and whether it has been made easy enough. The European Commission also has open investigations. We have seen TikTok, for example, wanting to introduce a very addictive service where people would get rewards for using TikTok for a certain length of time every day, building up streaks. That was pulled as a result of regulatory pressure. We are seeing results from the regulation but we certainly have not yet got as far as we need to.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is there one unilateral change that anyone would make tomorrow if they could that would increase children's and young people's online safety instantly? If so, what would that be?
Ms Fiona Jennings:
For us at the ISPCC, we have talked a lot about regulating the content that children see. It is becoming more and more apparent that it is the design of the products themselves that is actually more harmful than the content. I am talking about the architecture behind how these systems and products are designed - the recommender systems. While we cannot turn off recommender systems, they certainly can be designed in a better way that serves up content but does not necessarily keep eyeballs on screens for the length of time that we see. In the ISPCC we have seen the impact of that where children are glued to devices into the early hours of the morning. That is impacting on their sleep and that is then impacting their trying to get up in the morning and go to school.
Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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I thank all the witnesses for coming in today. This is very important to me because I am a father of four kids. This all falls under the same remit of what may potentially happen down the line in the next few years. It is already happening regarding teenage girls and the Snapchat issue that has been going on for years, which has been unaddressed, and the addiction that has caused. At any event there will be some family member - we have all been there - who takes out the phone and is pressing just to get their picture on. This is a constant.
Snapchat, Roblox and all these online gaming forums are basically forming addiction in early childhood. Going forward we are going to be left with a complete mess because of an issue that should have been tackled a long time ago. It can be the simplest little things. For example, Duolingo allows people to learn Irish. I was not aware of this until one of my children had a three-and-a-half-year streak where she went every day to complete a sentence in Irish, which is healthy and there is absolutely nothing actually wrong with it. However, it was becoming an issue that we had to stop. I believe there are families watching this today who are in the same situation where they are not aware of what is going on around their own table until they break it down and look at it. We have brought devices into our house that cut it off. You can hit the phone off it and you have got the block on it. Families all over Ireland need to be aware of what is going on.
My first question is for Webwise. I am wary of whether an SPHE class once a week can counter hours of harmful content, seeing that we are seen on social media every day. I know the teachers are dealing with it. My wife is a teacher and I never stop hearing about it. How can we embed digital media literacy across the curriculum to make things safer and smarter?
Ms Jane McGarrigle:
Online safety is embedded across the primary and post-primary curriculums, supported by training and resources for teachers, particularly in well-being and SPHE. At primary level, the well-being specification includes media and digital well-being. It is covered at post-primary level in junior cycle SPHE and senior cycle SPHE, which will become mandatory. At junior cycle, there is also a digital media literacy short course, which is excellent. Its curriculum has been reviewed and updated. We would like to see more encouragement for schools to do that course and engage with it. The specification addresses things like AI literacy and algorithms. We see that as an important support for schools.
We encourage the whole-school approach to online safety. That it is not just the responsibility of one teacher or one class, regardless of how frequent that class is. We promote the idea of digital citizenship education, which takes the whole-school approach and looks for opportunities to embed digital citizenship across the curriculum. When I speak about digital citizenship, I am not just talking about risks or harms; I am talking about opportunities, participation, access and understanding your rights online.
We have online courses for schools and teachers at primary and post-primary level to look at opportunities, embed them, understand what digital citizenship is, recognise how they might already be teaching that and find further ways to bring it in. We know from teachers that these issues come into all classes, not just SPHE class, so it is important to support teachers in addressing them. We encourage teachers to engage with that course. There are short one-hour courses and these can be done in teachers' own time.
Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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I am conscious of time and will move on. Hopefully, I will get back in later. Has Coimisiún na Meán made any attempts to engage with social media companies about the algorithms, which we know are contributing to the rise in harmful content online?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
The Deputy is entirely right that the algorithms are a big issue. This was talked about before. It is the service design rather than content that causes a lot of the problems. If no one sees the content, it does not really matter.
We address algorithms through the Digital Services Act. There is a provision in that Act requiring platforms to protect the safety, security and privacy of children. That is very high level. It has been supplemented with a set of expectations and guidelines which address algorithms and recommender systems. To comply with Article 28, platforms need to address addictive design features - things like infinite scrolling, the streaks that have been mentioned and notifications popping up to remind people to go back online. That issue is addressed through the DSA.
The European Commission has a responsibility for some of the very large platforms. We share that responsibility and have responsibility for the smaller ones as well. The enforcement of those things is something we are working on. We talked about Snapchat and Roblox. They are both regulated in the Netherlands because their European headquarters are there. As part of the European team that addresses this, we work closely with our counterparts. One of the things they ask us to do is provide evidence of harms.
The answer to the Deputy's question is that we have engaged directly and through counterparts on getting those algorithms to be better. We have by no means reached the end of the road yet. We have the expectations but now need to make sure platforms deliver on those expectations. If they do not deliver voluntarily, there will need to be investigations and enforcement action. We are in the foothills of that but at least we have now set the expectations.
Mike Kennelly (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses. It is a bit of a horror show right now in relation to child safety and welfare online. We have all the data we need. Unfortunately, I was not available to go to the AV room on Tuesday for the presentation on children's safety online. Some of the content was horrific, I have been told.
We may be late in coming to sort out protection of our children but I hope all groups can agree on something, such as emergency legislation banning under-16s. It looks like an uphill battle. I will come to Mr Hammersley later. He mentioned that children do not want to be excluded from the digital world. That is a tough ask at the moment.
Ms Willis mentioned a schools programme and community engagement. It starts with schools. Like road safety or whatever, it starts with teaching our kids about the harms out there. What is involved in that programme? Are we going into schools and addressing kids in the absence of their parents about the fears and so on? Is it working?
Ms Angela Willis:
We have two programmes. We have a primary school programme and a secondary school programme. We have collaborated with Webwise and others to develop those programmes. Our community engagement gardaí go into the schools. The primary school programme is targeted at third and fourth class. That is Be Kind Online. and it teaches them about their behaviour online. It talks about cyberbullying and tells them of the harms to them and the harm they can cause to others through online behaviour.
For secondary schools, we have four programmes, including Connect with Respect and Be in Control. We also talk about Coco's Law and what is involved in that. They are age appropriate. Connect with Respect is aimed at 12- to 14-year-olds. The material on Coco's Law is aimed at 14- to 16-year-olds and older children. We get the message out that behaviour online, such as through Snapchat, as was mentioned earlier, and sharing images without consent can be a criminal offence, as well as causing harm to somebody. It is often unintentional. They think it is fun but the programme brings the reality to them that it could be a criminal offence and they could end up being considered for prosecution or the juvenile liaison programme. It is in person. Children get an opportunity to interact with the community gardaí. The teachers are present. It is an open discussion and an engaging platform.
Mike Kennelly (Fine Gael)
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Ms Willis mentioned that 16 children had been located in Ireland through Europol. Was this down to grooming or cyberbullying? In the context of these 16 children, were the offenders charged?
Ms Angela Willis:
Our primary aim is to safeguard the child in the first instance. That is taking them away from the harm. We identified 16 children in Ireland and 151 globally. We engaged with Tusla, with which we have a close working relationship, in relation to those children and removing them from the harm. The investigation will follow afterwards. The perpetrator might be here but might not be; he or she could be somewhere else in the world. That is where, in the initial phases, police-to-police contact will come into play. If we need to bring that to prosecution, we may need to go through the formal route of mutual legal assistance requests to get the information in a method that allows it to be produced as evidence in a court setting.
Mike Kennelly (Fine Gael)
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Can that happen? Can we penalise the people causing this hurt and harm through dangerous content? That has to be our aim.
Mike Kennelly (Fine Gael)
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That is perfect. My next question is for Mr. Godfrey and Ms McAuley. Coimisiún na Meán ran a national awareness campaign for parents and young people on the right to report harmful online content. Has it been successful? How many calls have been made in response to the campaign, which would show it is working? Unfortunately, it is finishing in February. If the awareness campaign is working, I would like to see it extended.
Ms Karen McAuley:
I thank the Senator for his question. I do not have data with me on the number of calls Coimisiún na Meán received further specifically to that campaign but we certainly can arrange to send that to him. The focus of the national campaign is to raise awareness, including among parents, guardians and children, of harmful online content, the importance of making reports in regard to such content and how to do so. As the Senator noted, the campaign, which is supported by the Department of Health, is running until the end of February. Once it is in concluded, we will look at it and consider the option of extending it further as needs be.
It is one of a number of campaigns we have run since establishment to raise awareness of the online safety framework, people's right to report concerns they have, whether vis-à-vis illegal or harmful online content, and encourage them to make such reports to the platforms. In respect of illegal content, where people report, the platforms are obliged to respond. Where people are not happy with the response, it is then open to them to come to us with their concerns.
Mike Kennelly (Fine Gael)
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I am tight on time. My final question is to Mr. Hammersley, who may be able to put a good gloss on it. Children do not want to be excluded from the digital world. How will we get to that point?
Mr. Timmy Hammersley:
I am happy enough to give a tight answer. Safety by design is the key focus. I am really glad that has been said a few times here. It sounds good in theory but I do not think we will ban young people from being online and accessing platforms. If we develop safety by design over a prolonged period, it will really help with children's participation online.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I thank the witnesses for attending and for their opening statements. My first question is for the representatives from Coimisiún na Meán. They are governed by the EU Digital Services Act. My colleague Deputy Kelly has brought forward a Bill amending Coco's Law to include AI-generated images. We are responding as quickly as we can. How can we ensure, at an EU level, that the points we all raise, coming from a children's rights approach, are taken on board such that it is not just about self-regulation? Big digital companies have to be responsible and we must have some mechanism to ensure they are. Do we need to introduce legislation on issues like banning auto-play and loot boxes, looking at addictive designs and, as mentioned, making it the default that the algorithms are automatically turned off or banned? Does Ireland need to introduce additional legislation to get Europe to move?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
I thank the Senator for her question. It is really important to address this at a European level because not all platforms children use are based in Ireland. We talked today about Snapchat and Roblox, which are based in the Netherlands, and TikTok, which is based in Ireland. Some of the platforms that are important to children are based here and some elsewhere in Europe. It is really useful to have Europe working together.
We definitely have moved away from an era of self-regulation to an era of statutory regulation. The Digital Services Act places binding obligations on platforms to keep children safe and they have been supplemented with much more specific guidelines on what that actually means in practice. Regarding addictive design, one of my favourite parts of the guidelines is the requirement that if a platform offers a service to children, it must first have some form of age assurance or verification to ensure that platform knows which of its users are children. Platforms must not expose children to addictive design features like infinite scrolling, pop-up notifications and promotion of streaks or, at least, those features must be turned off by default. Children must not be exposed to inappropriate content like pornography or extreme violence.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Those are guidelines. The question is how they will become practice.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Is that happening at the moment?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
It absolutely is happening. I am aware there may be investigations on this opening quite soon in other parts of Europe. The guidelines came in last July. The process for supervision and assessment of whether platforms are complying with them is on the way. If they do not comply with the guidelines, there will be investigations.
As well as the guidelines, there is also a co-ordinated action on pornography. The European Commission is taking some action against some of the largest pornography platforms. However, one of the observations is that if we get the large platforms to introduce proper age assurance, then people will just use smaller platforms.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I thank Mr. Godfrey. That brings me to the children's rights approach. Mr. Hammersley, Ms Gill and Ms Jennings might talk more about that. A ban on social media use for under-16s has been introduced in Australia but we do not know how that is going. There is very little evidence to say whether it is working. The last thing we want in Ireland is to have confusion arising because there are so many people working in different ways, including on national awareness campaigns for children, parents, teachers, schools and youth projects. We need a clear approach.
How can we ensure that we adopt a children's rights approach and that we include parents' voices and youth voices? It is a question of how we can have a national campaign map and ensure there is not duplication of services. Members of An Garda Síochána go into schools, as do the organisations represented here today. As a youth worker, I was involved in projects in schools. Webwise is one that comes to mind. There is a huge opportunity for youth services and sports clubs to get involved in this but there must be clear messaging to ensure young people, parents and big tech companies are aware of the legal implications. Is that the role of Coimisiún na Meán or the ombudsman? Will Mr. Hammersley or Ms Gill talk a little about a children's rights approach to online safety?
Ms Ciara Gill:
Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have many rights. They have the right to communication, play, education and health. A lot of those rights are engaged online. There is also the right to protection from harm. The one we notice as being most absent from the debates on banning children from social media is their right to have their voice heard. That is not really brought up in any of the discussions. We have engaged with our youth advisory panel in the office and its members have outlined the risks and problems they face online - they have different perspectives on the issues - but they have also outlined the benefits. We think a ban is a bit of a blunt instrument. It is nearly putting the responsibility on children for taking away what is benefiting them and taking the responsibility away from the social media companies, which should be designing their products in such a way that they are safe for children rather than just saying children cannot use those products.
Social media is only one of the online environments. There are also online gaming platforms and things like that where children can be contacted and exposed to risk. Banning social media use does not mean the risk is gone; it just means one category of risk is gone. Another issue is that children might still find ways to go online.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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There are huge benefits to online engagement.
Ms Ciara Gill:
Yes, and they might then access a service that has not been designed to be safe for them because they are not supposed to be there. There are huge benefits for children from being online. In our view, it is more about putting the responsibility on the companies rather than the children.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I apologise to Ms Jennings for not getting to her.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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There will be a second round of questions.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Thank you, a Chathaoirligh.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all the witnesses for being here today. I have two questions for the representatives of An Garda Síochána and two for the witnesses from Coimisiún na Meán.
Under the current law is there a difference in terms of the action the Garda can take when it comes to an individual creating or sharing child sexual abuse material versus an organisation facilitating the creation or sharing of that material? My second question to the Garda is on the online child exploitation unit and the victim identification teams. What are the staff numbers on both of those?
Ms Angela Willis:
I thank the Deputy for the question. Under the current legislation there are offences for both individuals and bodies corporate for both the generation and circulation of child sexual abuse material and also for intimate abuse imagery. It has to be circulated, when it relates to adults, for the offence to be committed but there are offences contained within both the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act and the harmful communications Act for both individuals and bodies corporate.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I assume the steps in the investigation would vary where it is an organisation versus an individual, but is the Garda more limited in one area than another or is it just as easy for it to go into an organisation that is facilitating child sexual abuse material as it is to go to an individual when it gets their IP address and knocks on their door?
Ms Angela Willis:
It depends on where the material we need to access is located. Sometimes it can be in another jurisdiction and if that is the case then it can be more complex. That is equally complex in the case of an individual or a corporate entity. We have heard some such entities are located here and some have headquarters elsewhere, but we could end up having to go to a jurisdiction that does not have similar laws to us and that can be quite complex when we are trying to access the information. Sometimes we do not get the full information we need to present a case to the DPP for consideration of a prosecution. We might only get certain metadata back and then we have to try to see how else we can access that information. Depending on what the investigation is that can lead us to other opportunities to gather evidence elsewhere. As I said earlier, our international police co-operation really comes to the fore there. My colleague, Mr. Ryan, has sat on and chaired international working groups on the exchange of information so I would like to bring him in on that point.
Mr. Pat Ryan:
I have previously sat on and chaired the European Union Cybercrime Task Force meeting, which is all the heads of cybercrime units throughout Europe working together to ensure law enforcement has everything it needs to be able to progress investigations. One of the biggest issues, which has been addressed at a Commission level, is access to data. That is something that has been well identified as a challenge for law enforcement. As the assistant commissioner has just said, much depends on where data resides. Having access to data in this jurisdiction or at a European level is one thing but it can also reside anywhere globally and in order for us to be able to progress our investigations we have to look at the MLAT procedure that is in place. I am glad to be able to say the e-evidence regulation is due to come online this year, as far as I am aware. That will greatly assist law enforcement with being able to get access and make preservation orders and production orders in relation to data that is required in order to progress investigations. That is a very welcome development in that regard.
There are always plenty of other challenges due to the volume of data. We have seen how, even in our investigations, the volume of data we now have to analyse has also significantly grown. There are definitely challenges with these investigations. They can take considerable time to complete. We are very much working with our colleagues throughout Europe through Europol and its innovation centre to look at the toolsets law enforcement needs to progress these investigations.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Ryan. What about the numbers on the teams?
Ms Angela Willis:
There are 85 personnel operating within the Garda National Protective Services Bureau. In addition we have 27 divisional protective services units with at least one in every division. There are 300 people involved in the divisional protective services, including inspectors, sergeants and gardaí, spread right across the country. The centralised piece is the national protective services bureau. There are ten people in the online child exploitation unit but that is a triage unit. The investigations are sent out to the divisional protective services units for follow-up investigation. It is important to say that while we receive lots of referrals, not all of them reach the standard that breaches criminality here. A key role of the online child exploitation unit is to examine the material coming in and if it reaches the criminal bar then it is sent out for investigation and we have the divisional protective services units that can follow up and if there is a safeguarding issue they can follow up on that.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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How many victim identification teams are there in the State?
Ms Angela Willis:
As part of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau we have victim identification as a product, if you like, within that and so when we are examining devices seized in the course of criminal investigations there is a particular emphasis on trying to identify victims within that. Within the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau we have 84 Garda personnel. That includes four hubs in Wexford, Cork, Galway and Mullingar. We have plans for a further hub in Dundalk later this year.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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There are four teams then.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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Okay, I thank the witnesses.
Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being here. The furore that has happened in the last few weeks and the obvious upset a lot of people have felt because of Grok and nudification apps left a lot of people feeling we had no legislation in place and no protection from the online world. Over the last few weeks we have realised we have a lot of that legislation in place. The Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, is doing a lot of work in the area and we have the AI committee. While we will have to be reactive because the online world is changing so much, it is obvious we have a lot of protection there. We always have to be looking to the future and what the next thing is though. I believe WhatsApp is going to fall outside social media regulation and legislation. I do not consider myself a conspiracy theorist but I believe WhatsApp has already dipped its toe into it and that it is not just a messaging service. Perhaps it has slowed its progress in that field to see what legislation comes in order that it will be excluded from it, and then it can continue. It has started with its statuses, broadcast channels and things like that. I believe it will find itself outside legislation, but one of the biggest dangers to our children is what we are not seeing as the next problem. What is the witnesses' view of the likes of WhatsApp? Are they seeing a lot of danger from that app, rather than just the traditional social media apps? Maybe Ms McGarrigle will start.
Ms Jane McGarrigle:
I thank the Deputy very much for the question. When we talk to young people about their concerns online they are around encountering harmful content. The platforms they raise as concerning are more the social media-type platforms. That does not mean the messaging apps or the encrypted messaging are not causing problems and others may have more to say on that, but young people are concerned about exposure to harmful content, spending too much time online, violent or gory content, the algorithms and being able to manage that, as well as the impact on their mental health.
Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms McGarrigle. Does anyone else have a view?
Ms Fiona Jennings:
Yes. With our GroSafe project that has really come to the fore. GroSafe is a project we are working on with TU Dublin funded by Research Ireland under the national challenge fund.
That is to look at developing a technology-enabled solution to build societal resilience to child grooming. Part of that is an in-classroom digital game, as well as a reporting service chat feature and a knowledge management system. From that, we learned that often those who want to harm or groom children seek them out in open, unencrypted spaces and move them very quickly to encrypted places where there are no eyes. That is a concern.
It is also a concern that it is a blind spot in terms of child sexual abuse material. We know from a lot of work that we are doing on the proposed regulation at EU level that there is a massive privacy lobby against what they are trying to do out there. That is hugely concerning. Anywhere children can be moved to in the digital environment where there is no oversight is concerning to us.
Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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My child did a programme a couple of weeks ago called Agree to Agree in his school in Athboy, County Meath. His father, who had to bring him because I was here, was very cynical about attending. He said he knew everything there is to know. We limit our son's screen time and know what he is looking at. We do not allow screens in bedrooms and thought we were brilliant, but his father came home as white as a sheet from what he learned.
What was fabulous about the programme was that my son was involved. He brought home the form. He signed it and we signed it. He then brought it back into school and his teacher signed it. When I tried to take the tablet off him prior to that, he would go mental and there would be a row.
To my shame, he had to remind me at the weekend that he had reached his screen time limit because he is sticking to his agreement. He is only nine and I know it is much easier than if he was a teenager, but it is a good habit. It is early intervention. I was surprised when Ms McGarrigle said that there are courses for teachers, which is fantastic, but that they are doing them in their own time. I hope there are no parents listening to me and wondering if I want to give teachers more time off, but that kind of coursework is as important as anything else they have service days or half days for. Is that something Webwise is advocating for?
Ms Jane McGarrigle:
The Agree to Agree programme is a fantastic programme and Dr. Maureen Griffin does brilliant work on that. We are a big supporter of consultation involving children, teachers and parents from the outset. I think there are some really positive results out of that. On the training piece, I am going to hand over to my colleague Mr. Kilcoyne.
Mr. Anthony Kilcoyne:
I think one of the key pieces is how this is interwoven into all other supports for school. On the face of it, we would all love to see much more mandatory support for schools, but there is a curriculum to be implemented by teachers. It is about finding those opportunities through the natural structures in schools and to support through policy and curriculum as well, so that it is not just through bespoke supports in the social, personal and health education, SPHE, or media literacy curriculums. There are other supports to develop information literacy skills and critical thinking. It is about taking advantage of those mechanisms as much as possible.
Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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The issue of Grok and nudification apps has blown up in the past few weeks. Have Coimisiún na Meán and the ISPCC seen a huge spike in the number of parents or children contacting them about that issue?
Ms Aoife Griffin:
The calls to Childline are certainly mentioning Grok. We have also received emails from children and parents asking about it, as well as about AI and chatbots in general. We are young people turning to AI for support and help. We are concerned that they are not going to the traditional therapeutic services, such as ourselves.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Anyone who missed the huge issues there are in the online space and the fact that we are really finding it difficult to get to grips with this will have become more aware thanks to the issues relating to Grok. It blew up in everyone's faces. There is a pile of issues here. My issue is that sometimes we are trying to use old-style rules against something that is able to operate much faster.
A number of laws are being broken by X. I get it that in a sensible world, an owner would not have defended what was basically an online child pornography factory. However, that is the case. Even when pressure came on X, it did the minimum
possible, or at least promised to do the minimum. The technological workarounds that existed previously are still there. The fact is we should have the sort of legislation whereby X would be in breach of it and we could block that entity as we would have our own technological solution. Even beyond that, if we had the appropriate legislation, the Government would be able to tell X that it cannot operate this service as it is breaking the law.
If someone makes a complaint and it is investigated by An Garda Síochána, that takes time and then it is brought under X, Y and Z legislation. However, who do we then hold responsible at X? We can talk about busting down the front doors or whatever, but who exactly are we going to arrest or question? It is then a question of where exactly these acts are happening. Is the nudifying occurring on the desktop? Is it happening while it is being shared? Is it somewhere in the cloud? I accept there are a huge number of issues with that. There is a legislative gap there. Is it the Garda representatives' opinion that this is a gap we need to deal with as soon as possible?
Ms Angela Willis:
Under the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020, there is an offence under subsection (6) that talks about the liability of directors and officers of corporate bodies. To the Deputy's specific questions around who within that entity is responsible, the Act is prescriptive and refers to a person who, when the offence was committed, was a director, manager, secretary or other officer of the body corporate or a person purporting to act in such a capacity and states that that person, as well as the body corporate, is guilty of an offence and is liable to be proceeded against and punished as if guilty of the first mentioned offence. Basically, that includes anyone acting as a director or a secretary. That is what the legislation says, but to gather the evidence to get you to a point where you are interacting with a director or manager, there are a lot of steps before that can happen.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It still requires an individual complaint. It cannot be a case of the service provided by X to the entire population being in breach of legislation. An Garda Síochána cannot proceed on that basis. It has to be-----
Ms Angela Willis:
In relation to adult content and intimate image abuse material, we need a complainant and that data has to have been shared. However, in relation to child sexual abuse material, there is a similar provision in the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 and that talks about offences by bodies corporate as well. There, it says a member of-----
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Is it only when the crime occurs?
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It is not for just providing the service.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Therefore, there is still the need for legislation on that. I get it. We are talking about one of the most difficult to deal with technology companies.
Can I also ask Coimisiún na Meán about the investigations? I have never believed that the Digital Services Act or the Online Safety Act has had the capacity that is needed to deal with the whole issue or has given Coimisiún na Meán the powers that are needed. It is not only about nudifying software but beyond that. It is about the recommender settings and keeping people engaged with addictive and harmful material, whether it relates to food disorders, disinformation or far worse scenarios, such as the abuse that is carried out by online predators. Will Mr. Godfrey talk, if he can, about the actions that are being taken against Grok and even beyond that?
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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You can tell me in private, if it is more interesting.
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
The Deputy asked the Garda representatives whether action can be taken without a complaint or just because something is happening. Under the Digital Services Act, which is to do with systemic risks and what is happening, there does not need to be an individual complaint. There is an obligation on X as a very large online platform to assess and mitigate risks.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Obviously, it has done none of that.
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
That includes the risk of circulation of illegal content on the platform, such as child sexual abuse material and intimate images being shared without consent, which would be examples of illegal content. It also has to assess and mitigate the risks of gender-based violence and causing serious mental or physical harm to individuals. Those risks need to be assessed.
When Grok was introduced and integrated into the X service, it was not mentioned in any of the risk assessments. One of the reasons the European Commission has opened its investigation was to see whether there has been a breach of the obligation to carry out the risk assessment and to mitigate those risks. That is one part of the investigation. Another reason is that Grok has also been used in the background to power the recommender system. That has now been added to a separate investigation into the risks posed by the X recommender system. That investigation was opened on Monday of this week. In the run-up to the opening of the investigation, we worked very closely with the European Commission to lay the groundwork for making the formal decision to open the investigation and now we are formally associated as a partner in helping with the investigation.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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How long will it take and what is the likely outcome?
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Thank you, Deputy Ó Murchú. There will be a second round. We now move to Senator Murphy O'Mahony.
Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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I thank everyone for coming in this morning and giving of their valuable time, and for all they do in keeping our children safe.
It is fair to say it is very hard to be a child now. The world is moving so fast and there is a major lack of the innocence that I experienced as a child, and I believe every child should have a childhood. It is also very hard being a parent of a child, in keeping up to date and coming down a fair route of allowing a bit of exposure but seeing what is going on at the same time. It is very hard to keep up with things.
My first question is for Coimisiún na Meán and Ms McAuley or Mr. Godfrey. Its youth advisory committee helped shape the online safety code to address issues like cyberbullying and harmful content. How does the organisation plan to ensure children's voices continue to inform regulatory decisions as new risks, especially with all that is happening now, emerge?
Ms Karen McAuley:
I thank the Senator for her question. Our youth advisory committee was established in 2023 and is a statutory committee. It was established as soon as possible following our own establishment as an organisation because we wanted to hear from young people and those working on their behalf about their thoughts on the online safety code. They played a critical role in shaping the online safety code and it was a valuable engagement from them. Since then, we have engaged with the committee on a wide range of issues relating to our remit, including on matters relating to online safety.
Going back to an earlier topic that came up regarding introducing further restrictions, including potentially children's access to social media, we had an opportunity to hear from members of our youth advisory committee in September of last year and I might say what they told us. Overall, vis-à-vis potential ideas for a social ban here in Ireland, they were generally in favour of that. Some of the reasons given very much align with some of those given by colleagues here today vis-à-vis their own engagement with children and young people. To briefly summarise some of their thoughts, they made the point, as colleagues have here today, that social media is very much embedded in children's lives and that there are benefits to their engagement online as well as risks, which we are all familiar with and focused on and rightly so. However, they also felt a ban might push young people into unregulated spaces online and shift the problems elsewhere, where they are harder to reach by regulation. They felt it might deter young people who circumvent or find ways to circumvent a ban from reporting if they then subsequently experience harm online because they will feel as though they have done something wrong.
They also made the point that children and young people may see the ban as a form of punishment. As a committee, and I am summarising in the round, they preferred the more nuanced approach set out in regulation, which seeks to provide for child rights by design, including through the guidelines Mr. Godfrey mentioned earlier, and seeks to balance children's rights. There is absolutely a focus on protection as well as privacy and security, but also on children's empowerment and children's right to be heard and to access information, supports online and so on.
Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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My next question is for Webwise and Mr. Kilcoyne or Ms McGarrigle. They highlighted parents' growing difficulty in staying informed about online harms. I thank God that my children are now adults because I would not fancy trying to stay on top of everything while trying to encourage my children to use what is there. It is not easy. Should system-wide supports be introduced? There are campaigns to ensure parents are kept up to date, but could anything else be done to help parents to stay on top of things?
Ms Jane McGarrigle:
I thank the Senator for her question. We share her concerns. It is very hard to be a parent right now and it is very difficult to keep up with things. Often, parents and families are the least supported in terms of online safety and research shows they have risks themselves in managing their own digital media literacy and the gaps there.
We believe we need bigger thinking around this. We see schools doing good work. We have talked about the Agree to Agree project involving parents, and schools arrange talks for parents. However, we need to see bigger thinking and further supports on this. We need national media awareness campaigns that are consistent and not just a one-off. We need consistent messaging on this highlighting where the supports are for parents, for example through the Irish Safer Internet Centre and supports available from Coimisiún na Meán and An Garda Síochána on this. We know some parents have bigger challenges than others and it is important we also match those national awareness campaigns with targeted supports, reaching parents in the communities where they are and in the places where they need supports. Additional supports and information need to be given to them, whether it is through community organisations, health centres or family support services. Resources will be needed for that.
It is also important that we look at the research on who is vulnerable and that we are also speaking to parents on this to find out what their challenges and barriers are to being engaged on this. We know that when parents are more engaged and are having conversations, there are better outcomes for their children. There are a few different layers there that need attention.
Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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That is good. This is so important because parents are in charge of their children, obviously, and many of them do not feel up to date or feel under pressure in trying to keep it all together.
I will leave it at that because I probably will not get in another question.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The next round of questions falls to me. I might start with Coimisiún na Meán. There is a huge rise in AI chatbots and AI girlfriends, and when I looked at the list, many of them were based in California, including Los Angeles, etc. Last year, 10% of adults in Ireland engaged in a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot. Even with a couple of Google searches into conversations online, you see things like, "I am addicted to my AI girlfriend and she is costing me €200 per month", and this kind of crazy stuff, along with other things the witnesses mentioned such as teaching men to think they can control women, etc., and teaching women to be more submissive. Mr. Godfrey mentioned a company that is regulated in the Netherlands. Where are we with those smaller companies? There is a huge focus on nudification apps now because Grok is mainstream, but this has been going on for a long time.
Often, it is a matter of smaller companies that might not even have an app and might just be on the Web. Where are we in terms of protecting young adults and teenagers from risks posed by smaller companies that are not based here? Are all of them subject to regulation in the EU?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
There are two parts to the question. One is about the regulation of chatbots and the other is about where they are based and whether they are small. It may not be the case that all chatbots fall within online regulation. We tend to regulate platforms where the content is shared with the public. We regulate search engines. Some chatbots may fall into the category of search engines because, essentially, you can ask them questions and they give you information. Some of those may not fall within the scope of the regulation we currently have. They will fall within the scope of the AI Act. They are not currently on the list of high-risk systems. Any system that has a large language model behind it and a natural language interface poses a high risk. One of the things we are considering is whether we should advocate the expansion of the list of high-risk systems under the AI Act, bringing them within regulation. The Act is very complicated and it has not yet been enforced. There are other provisions that might apply to them.
There was a question about people outside the EU. If they fall under EU online regulation, there is a requirement on them to have, at least, a legal representative in the EU. If they do not, any EU member state can start to regulate them. It is much harder to enforce regulation on someone outside the jurisdiction. That is what is provided for.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I am aware that the Ombudsman for Children and the ISPCC had contact on Grok. I am also aware that the ombudsman is regularly engaging with children. Have AI chatbots and AI girlfriends come up recently? Have they not yet filtered down to the children the witnesses are engaging with?
Mr. Timmy Hammersley:
That is a great question. Thanks a million. We conducted a study on AI and young people recently and it provided really valuable insight, particularly regarding our youth advisory panel, which is a group of 30 young people from all around Ireland. It is great to hear that youth participation is growing, along with that of Coimisiún na Meán and others. That is key.
There was concern about AI, in particular, and everything else that has come up here, such as chatbots and their risks. Seeking advice on the topic is a theme that came through in our study. However, young people also talk about the alternative side of AI. It helps them to be creative, to utilise their talents and to structure things. Similar themes keep coming through. From our perspective, young people absolutely recognise the risk attached to AI and want more protection, but they also appreciate what AI brings them. Again, it is a matter of the combination.
We are here to talk about the views of the children we hear from. They refer to the combination. While they want their safety enhanced, they also want their utilisation of AI to be encouraged in a way that recognises their creativity and allows them to share their viewpoints and their experiences. What we have heard on AI is very consistent with what we have heard here today, and that ultimately will lead to safer participation by children online. It is about a combination of regulation and education.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Does the ISPCC find it has filtered down? Are our teenagers using AI girlfriends already?
Ms Fiona Jennings:
We considered this for the AI committee through our services. It was coming through that teenagers were using AI chatbots. They did not necessarily always know that that was what they were doing. Pretty much in line with Mr. Hammersley’s point, they found it fun at times and not helpful at others. From a services point of view, that is concerning. From a policy point of view, the way the chatbots are engineered, namely to be incredibly agreeable, to imitate empathy and not to challenge, is concerning. Challenging is a really important part of the therapeutic process. Again, it goes back to poor design.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I have 15 seconds left. The phenomenon is quite new. In what way are Webwise courses updated regularly to reflect this?
Mr. Anthony Kilcoyne:
I will use one example. Our online course on AI for teachers is constantly updated. The Department of Education and Youth published guidance for schools on AI and it was updated in October. It is regularly updated, but it is a challenge to stay at least on par with, or ahead of, what is happening.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Go raibh maith agaibh. We have time for a second round. There is one Deputy online and some are present. We will start with Deputy Ó Murchú, who is to be followed by Deputies Kerrane and Dempsey, in accordance with the speaking rota. Each has five minutes.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Could Mr. Godfrey state how long this process should take? What are the likely outcomes, given a finding against X? What are we talking about in terms of possible findings?
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That is all right.
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
It is important that people have fair procedures and that the evidence be gathered, so the process does take longer than one might like. There is no point conducting an investigation only to have the outcome challenged on procedural grounds. Investigations are thorough, painstaking and based on evidence, and people have fair procedures.
There is a provision for interim measures, though. If harm is ongoing when the European Commission is carrying out an investigation, or before it is concluded, it can consider an interim measure to require some change in platform behaviour.
The third question was on the outcome of an investigation. The maximum fine under the Digital Services Act is 6% of worldwide turnover, which is high.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That is serious.
There have been a number of findings against online platforms in the past while but my understanding is that most of these are being challenged. Have any of the fines been paid?
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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The regulators are dealing with entities with serious resources.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It would be fair to say that, in the next while, we will probably see cases similar to what we have seen in America in the past while, with actions being taken against online platforms, particularly if they continue to down the road of recommender algorithms, which are causing particular issues.
We need to ensure we give people, young people in particular, the powers to build up resilience and see what is what. However, it is not acceptable to have platforms that are forcing people into addiction and into practices that are incredibly dangerous and very harmful. Is there a need at the minute to update the online safety Act and the Digital Services Act?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
It is probably too early to say if there is any need for major change. The powers have been fully enforced only since last July both in terms of our online safety code, which has quite specific mandatory obligations, and the Digital Services Act, under which the detailed expectations about how to keep children safe online came into effect.
The Act was adopted last July. Looking at the whole architecture of how that regulation works, it is too early to say we need to start enforcing the tools we have. I think I mentioned to one of the other members of the committee earlier that we have found some more procedural-type issues where we think there could be some useful improvements. For us, it is about our ability to require the production of information and to have statutory information requirements at an earlier stage, not just when an investigation has been opened. We would find that quite useful. We have been talking to our Department about that, and there may be some legislation for the committee to consider relatively soon.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That is good. The ability to review and amend is a necessity in relation to most legislation. As regards dealing with the recommender settings, we are in the age of AI. We could talk about a perfect world in which online platforms were held liable as publishers, but even outside of that, there are certain things that most reasonable people could accept as acceptable or not acceptable. The AI filters could be improved on a day-to-day basis, never mind anything else, and could deal with a considerable amount. Even when complaints are made, the biggest issue people have is the length of time it takes to take harmful disinformation and whatever else down, particularly the stuff that drives people down the road of really harmful material. How is Coimisiún na Meán tackling that?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
If we are talking about children particularly, the harms that have been identified from the recommender systems are addictive design features and the creation of toxic feeds. It may well be that one piece of beauty content is not a problem but an unremitting diet of beauty content can tip somebody into having inappropriate body images. The toxic feeds are an issue. The infinite scrolling and the recommending of inappropriate or adult-only content are an issue. These are the issues. Under Article 28 of the Digital Services Act, we have clear expectations that children should not be exposed to recommender systems that have those features in it. We do not have the same sort of ability to be so specific with adults. If you have specific requirements for children, you need to know which of your users are children and which ones are adults.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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How is Coimisiún na Meán taking on the platforms in relation to that?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
Those expectations and guidelines came into place in July. What is now happening is assessment of what the gap is. Are they complying? If they are not complying, then, at some point, we and our counterparts and other member states in the European Commission will move to enforcement action if we cannot get people to voluntarily to change their services. We are seeing changes in the way the platforms operate-----
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Not enough.
Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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It is probably obvious that we are all in agreement. Some work has been done but there is a lot more to do. What we need to do is get ahead of a lot of this stuff as much as we can. My question might not be that simple. For each of the witnesses and their organisations, if there was one thing that we as legislators could do tomorrow, what would have the most impact across each of the witnesses' areas of interest? I will start with Ms Jennings.
Ms Fiona Jennings:
In fairness, with technology like that, we are in a better place even than this time last year. That is something that is important to recognise. In the ISPCC, we are about prevention and early intervention. I am conscious that a lot of what we talked about, such as education, is about the reaction piece. At the moment, Australia is looking at a digital duty of care. It has opened a consultation on that. I think it closed at the end of last month. That is where there will be a duty of care on online services to take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable online harms to Australians. That would shift the responsibility for managing those harms from the individual to those services. There is merit in looking at that to see it so that we are not reacting. That is something that could be done to prevent the actual harm happening in the first place.
Ms Jane McGarrigle:
I will share some asks from our youth panel. There are three things it regularly tells us that it would like more of. First, it wants to be listened to and included in the discussions, involved in a meaningful way and kept involved in that process. Second, it wants the platforms to be made safer. I support the responses here from our colleagues around addressing the flaws in the system design. Third, the members of the panel want more consistent education for themselves and their parents. They recognise that their parents need support and they want to do more as well.
Mr. Pat Ryan:
From An Garda Síochána's perspective, I already alluded to the key evidence regulations, which I understand will be transposed through the criminal justice (protection, preservation of and access to data on information systems) Bill. Evidence, at the end of the day, is critical to our investigations. To be able to have early access to critical data to support our investigations is the one thing I am looking forward to. I recommend that we get on with that as soon as we can.
Mr. Timmy Hammersley:
In terms of AI, we feel it would be very beneficial if deepfakes and chatbots were considered high risk under the EU AI Act. With our ombudsman's hat on, we feel it should be made obligatory to talk to children, not just the people here. Everyone should talk to children. I know it is easy for us to see that but it is clear that this is increasing. Child participation is increasing. I do not ever remember being asked what I thought as a child, but we have given three or four examples of children now being included. The Deputy's story of empowering her child can be co-created in many places all around Ireland. Participation is co-creation. Again, it is not a choice; it is an obligation as part of the UNCRC. Of all the things we could say, they are probably the two I would reference.
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
I congratulate the Oireachtas on its wisdom in requiring us, under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022, to set up our youth advisory committee as our only statutory committee. We may well have done that anyway, but that really spoke volumes for the concern for the voice of the child. There are two things I would propose. I mentioned information-gathering powers, so I will not mention them again. The other thing is to make sure the regulators are properly resourced. There is more to investigate and supervise. There are more complicated legal battles to fight. We need more technological awareness as things change. We have been phenomenally successful in building ourselves up. We had 30 or 40 people when we started. We are now knocking on 300. We have amazing staff who buy into the mission of what we are doing, but we need more. Technical skills are a bit harder for us to get. That would be my one ask - please make sure we get properly resourced.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I might take the next question slot. Then I will go to Deputy Jen Cummins and Senator Cosgrove.
In An Garda Síochána's opening statement, it stated that one of the most challenging and critical areas of its work is victim identification. Can they talk a bit more about that? Are they finding content on devices and are not sure who the victims are?
Mr. Pat Ryan:
As part of the work we do with the Garda National Cybercrime Bureau, we conduct digital forensics on devices that are seized as part of national investigations.
There is no doubt that when we come across images and videos, etc., they have to be looked at in the context of the legislation. When we do come across something, we have access to the likes of the Interpol database as well. We are able to establish very quickly whether an image has already come to the attention of law enforcement or whether it is a new type of media. On that basis, we then conduct our victim identification to see if we can establish who the victim is or if the suspects are in there as well. We work very closely with our law enforcement partners in that regard as well to see if we can establish the identity of a victim.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Sticking with that cross-collaboration with other jurisdictions, and I am thinking of a constituent's case that involved an adult but I imagine similar is happening with children, I had a constituent who was being badgered online from abroad. The abuser was in the United States. Law enforcement there got involved but there was only so much they could do. Meanwhile, my constituent is still being bullied online. How does that relate to the work the Garda does in terms of children being groomed online from other jurisdictions? I know the Garda Síochána is working with hotline.ie to get images taken down and things like that but is the organisation falling into difficulty where somebody has engaged with a child online in a grooming way and are there more difficulties with different jurisdictions?
Mr. Pat Ryan:
Personally, from the work we do I would say no. Once we are aware of something, we will actually support victims. That is really critical. The officers at the Garda National Protective Services Bureau and the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau are very experienced and they are dealing with these types of situations. The first thing is to ensure no harm comes to a child. We would always do what we can in that regard in the first instance to ensure the harm is stopped.
By the very nature of the online world, we are often dealing with multiple jurisdictions but we have those connections through Europol and Interpol to be able to liaise with local police officers. We are working within various legal frameworks but we always do what we can to remove harm.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Sticking with that, if gardaí find some content or an image they want taken down, they ring hotline.ie in the first instance. They can report it to Coimisiún na Meán. They can report it to the platform, which is supposed to take it down. If the platform does not, the gardaí go to Coimisiún na Meán. Does Mr. Ryan think we are operating quickly enough with that or what would he like to see changed? I will stay with the Garda Síochána and then go to Coimisiún na Meán for that.
Taking the last few weeks as an example, if somebody has seen something, if an image is created by Grok and somebody sees it, they contact hotline.ie and report it to the platform and then report it to Coimisiún na Meán. It is a slow process. Sometimes there are teenagers who are afraid to leave their bedroom because something is online and they refuse to go to school. Do you think we need to speed up that process and how could that be done?
Mr. Pat Ryan:
Once something is online, it can move very quickly. Early intervention is important as soon as we become aware of something. There are challenges from a follow-on investigation perspective when it comes to the likes of encryption. That is why I would always advise someone who is a victim to take screenshots. You can engage with the social media companies to have content taken down as well. Indeed, hotline.ie also assists where it can and An Garda Síochána will as well.
The key message is that engagement with these organisations, including ourselves, has to happen very quickly because once an image has been posted online, it can traverse various social media platforms. That is where the challenges really begin. You may take it down from one platform but it is already on another platform. It could be based outside of this jurisdiction. There are challenges there with that.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Would Coimisiún na Meán like to see that happen more quickly?
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
We absolutely think there is a need to move very quickly when a child is at imminent and serious risk of harm. The Cathaoirleach talked about her constituent who is being cyberbullied. We are actually working with some NGOs on a pilot programme for how we might be able to make things happen more quickly. I will ask Ms McAuley to talk about that.
Ms Karen McAuley:
We are still in the relatively early stages of planning but we are planning to pilot a programme in 2026 that is directed towards providing support to children who are at imminent risk of harmful online content. It would not be illegal content but harmful online content, such as online bullying, which we know is the most reported concern by children to helplines throughout Europe.
The idea is that we have invited member organisations from Ireland's Safer Internet Centre, which includes the ISPCC, Webwise and a number of platforms that are very popular with children in Ireland, to participate in this pilot on a voluntary basis. The idea behind the pilot is that where concerns are brought to our attention and they fall within the scope of the pilot, and where we consider the child may be at imminent risk, we can escalate those concerns to the platforms, if they decide to participate, so those concerns can be looked at. It is a triaging process, really.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I apologise for not being here earlier. I was at another committee and then in the Chamber. I am not actually a member of this committee but I have come to it because I have loads of children myself and I have worked with children and young people for a very long time.
Earlier this week, I was at an audiovisual room presentation by CyberSafeKids. The staff members from the Oireachtas and the Members of the Oireachtas who were there all reacted in disbelief. It is shocking what young people are exposed to online. One of the things I am asked very regularly is what parents can do. Obviously, that is different for different ages. I talk to parents of children, particularly those who are coming into the teenage years and at the so-called tween age, and they are literally frightened and asking what they will do. How will they stop their children having a phone? What if they got on the apps? What will the parent do? They are very fearful.
There is also the other part where I have worked with children and young people who have had awful things happen to them online, unfortunately. The parents then try to pick up the pieces after the devastation of what has happened to the children, which was done by peers in most cases. From those two sides, what can parents do because I think they are frightened and a little bit overwhelmed by how fast all of this moves?
Ms Aoife Griffin:
I can speak to that. That is something I hear all of the time in my professional life and personal life. I am chairperson of our local parents' association and it is something we are trying to grapple with as parents. Communication among parents is a huge part of that, along with creating forums and places like our parenting hub so you can send people to a trusted source of information. That is hugely important.
Webwise and Ms Jennings mentioned it and I think we need a targeted campaign aimed at parents across all strata of where children are at, whether it be the GAA club, the karate club, the school or the local health centre. Wherever it is, there should be something happening that is visual, parents can engage with it and it speaks to them.
It is important not to forget these parents who need extra support. In preparing for today, I thought of a mom we worked with in Cork last year who was deaf, single and supporting a child with additional needs. She literally needed a support worker to sit with her and put controls onto the phone because her whole life is overwhelming. She is very conscious this is something she needs to do and needs education on but where does she start? As Webwise mentioned, there needs to be targeted resourcing of organisations that can support parents directly but also, overall, a national campaign where parents can get trusted support and education.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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Where does Ms Griffin think we should target that national campaign? When I was growing up, there were always TV ads about not climbing up the electricity pole because you will get electrocuted. There are those kinds of programmes if you are watching the TV where you might see it. Should it be on TV, in newspapers or where?
Ms Aoife Griffin:
Absolutely. It should be on social media as well. We are talking a lot about the platforms but we are all on Instagram, Facebook and whatever it is. The ads need to be targeted where people are at. There is a lot of engagement in schools and organisations like the GAA. I was thinking about this last night. I went to a GAA meeting, then to karate and then on to another meeting, which were all opportunities for a poster. If you have them everywhere where parents are at so they can see them, that would certainly help.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank Ms Griffin. Does anybody else want to come, especially on the older children?
Ms Jane McGarrigle:
I thank the Deputy for the question.
We need to look at lots of different ways of communicating with parents. It is not enough now to host a talk in the school in the evenings. Parents have so many different challenges and we have to recognise that and respond to it. There are lots of different ways we can do that. On TV and radio, we need to get those big messages out there about where the supports are and the brilliant resources that are available from all the colleagues here, but we also need to look at engaging influencers and creators who can translate the messages from traditional TV and media and talk to parents in a way that they respond to and listen to. One really great example of trying something different was colleagues, through the media literacy Ireland network, developed this micro online course for parents that was a WhatsApp campaign. Parents who signed up for the course would get a daily WhatsApp message with a short piece of information. As the Cathaoirleach said, this is overwhelming so we need to find ways to digest this message and not scare parents either, because this is quite scary for parents. We need to empower them with those messages and there are lots of ways we can do that. I thank her for the question.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I am sorry. I have to go and I am only back so the witnesses might have said this already. It is similar to Deputy Cummins. Even from our briefing documents, there is much talk about having a national campaign and wonderful work is being done by different organisations. There are youth advisory committees in different organisations. I am thinking of the role of youth services like NYCI and Foróige. I know they are on it when it comes to digital - they really are. I spoke earlier about there being too many campaigns and outlets and the message gets lost. Is that Coimisiún na Meán's responsibility? Who is going to roll out the national campaign? Will it be Coimisiún na Meán? Will it be the Department or the new children and family unit in the Department of the Taoiseach? Who will fund it? Who will deliver it? Whose responsibility is it across all platforms - social media and traditional media – and getting into youth organisations, sports clubs and so on? If it is a campaign, whose responsibility is it? If everyone is working in silos then the message gets lost.
Ms Karen McAuley:
We said in our opening statement, and others have said something similar, that we see this as a whole-of-society response. Responsibility for national awareness campaigns do not necessarily rest with one agency. It can be done as a coalition.
On some of the points Ms McGarrigle was making, there is a risk of proliferation of campaigns. Messages can get confused or lost. We have discussed internally the importance of understanding what messages people most need and who they need to hear it from because it is also about trust – trusted voices and trusted organisations.
To build on what colleagues have said on the importance of any national awareness campaigns being complemented by work at grassroots level in schools and communities where people are living their lives, these messages about what to do, where to seek support and how to get help need to be reinforced time and again. We cannot assume that somebody will hear it for the first time and it will land. It may not resonate the first time. It is about a very co-ordinated and sustained approach to raising awareness. As Ms McGarrigle said, the purpose of raising awareness is to empower people. It is not to place responsibility for online safety on children and young people or on parents. Those obligations rest with platforms and providers. It is very much about empowering so that people feel equipped to navigate this environment in a way that is safe.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Whose overarching responsibility is this? For us as legislators, whose responsibility is it in the Oireachtas to ensure that approach is co-ordinated? Has a task force been set up which all the different organisations are part of? How will it make sure that we get very clear messaging? I do not know if that is Coimisiún na Meán or what Department.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Would the children and family unit in the Department of the Taoiseach be a place for it? I am just putting that out there. I do not know.
Ms Fiona Jennings:
It certainly needs a home, co-ordination and leadership and then the cascading can happen. As hard as we try, a lot of work still happens in silos. Parents are not a homogenous group. That is why we use the word "targeted". A lot of what is out there is universal messaging and that is not landing. Time and again, research shows that once-off campaigns or talks do not work. That is why we need that sustained approach. There are many experts in this room and the committee has heard already from them. It is about getting them together, designing that campaign and rolling it out.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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It is also about finding responsibility in the Government to say who will be in charge of that.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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The unit is there already. I thank the witnesses.
Mr. Timmy Hammersley:
A campaign can have many variables and is not just education. When we discussed the smartphone ban with young people, they constantly raised the resources in schools. There is a huge variation in resources and digital infrastructure. That is something we can close going forward to make sure that no matter where they are in school, every child has access to the same resources within school. That is having a big impact on the education of children and of the parents.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Even young people - youth services - are part of the Department of education not with the Department of children. It is difficult. We just need to find a proper place.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I will allow another two-minute round if members wish and if witnesses are okay. Then I will allow each organisation to give their closing remarks. I will start with Deputy Ó Murchú, who I am sure will take the opportunity.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Godfrey spoke about sufficient resourcing for Coimisiún na Meán. What does that look like? That leads me to believe it does not have adequate resourcing now.
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
We are currently knocking on 300. We are about to be given additional functions under the AI Act under the transparency of targeting of political advertising regulation under the European Media Freedom Act. Not all those directly engage children, of course. We have also learned quite a lot from our knocking on three-years of establishment about what it takes to be effective, particularly in fighting all the legal battles. Right now we are putting together a new workforce plan for what we might need so I cannot give the Deputy a number at the moment.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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But Mr. Godfrey will be back to us when he has it.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Definitely – with the great powers I have. I think the assistant commissioner said there were ten in the online child exploitation unit. There are also the victim identification teams and cybersecurity hubs. What do we need to deal with the need out there? It is a lot more, I assume.
Ms Angela Willis:
I thank the Deputy for the question. It is not just about human resources. There are a lot of other tools we can leverage to support the work we do and to make that work more efficient. We are constantly engaging with our international partners to make sure we are keeping up with the latest technology that is available to us.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I do not want to interrupt but I assume using artificial intelligence would probably-----
Ms Angela Willis:
That is something we need to grasp, if I can put it that way and in a useful way, to enable us to be more efficient in how we approach this area because we are dealing with big sets of data, so it is a case of being able to analyse that in a more efficient manner rather than manual trawling. We need to get to that place.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Would it be fair to say An Garda Síochána needs resources, both human and technological, in relation to the need out there and we do not have enough at the minute?
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That is fair enough.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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It is a huge concern and everyone is doing their very best to keep on top of it, which is really hard to do because it keeps changing. I wonder about making sure the voice of the child or the young person is being heard. While there are youth advisory committees, there is definitely a cohort of young people who do not feel comfortable reporting. Are there any ways to address that? They may be afraid their phones will be taken off them. They may be afraid that they know someone who has done this and they do not want to get them in trouble. There are loads of different reasons. If it is something like online bullying, they may be afraid it will get worse. How prevalent is that? Parents are probably the ones who go to them. Has that come up as an issue for children particularly who are reluctant?
Ms Angela Willis:
The Senator is 100% right. With this particular issue in mind, we collaborated with another 14 countries across the EU and we are partnered to a Help4You, a digital platform which provides information. We talked about hearing the voice of children. There were 200 children involved in the research to develop this platform. Basically, it provides very simple guidance and signposting for children who are either victims of online sexual grooming, sexual coercion or sharing of sexual images. Therefore, if they find themselves in their bedroom in that position that their images are shared online they can go into this platform. We are rolling it out as part of the schools programme and we are going to do some more information campaigns on it. It leads the children to the areas that can give them the information they need. That might be to talk to a parent, a trusted adult, a teacher or they can contact Hotline to get the image taken down. They can just press a button and it will bring them to the resource.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Is that done straightaway?
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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That is another example of something that might get lost because there are so many different campaigns. I had no idea that existed at all. How quick is the response?
Ms Angela Willis:
It is information that the child is provided with. They are not interacting with anyone but it is signposting them to what to do in a crisis situation and then the child may think of who they can talk to. If it is not a parent, they may have an aunt, a teacher or another trusted adult in their life they can talk to about this. If there is an image up there it will bring them to Hotline, they can fill out the form and the content is taken down. It gives them the information they need to deal with the situation in which they might find themselves.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I will follow on from that. I have been engaged in this topic since before I was elected but on a continuous basis since then. I meet people all the time who are saying no one is doing anything in this area. There are people who might have private businesses that are coming up with courses, books or manuals. Then NGOs are putting together things and there are Departments and agencies funded by the Government. Actually, there is a lot of work being done in the space. However, in general, I like to experiment. If I look at my phone and the clerk to the committee is looking at her phone beside me, we will have two totally different experiences. Even now when we are trying to get our news, people are going on to Spotify maybe, and looking through the soundbites of the news and which parts they are interested in. Everybody individually is consuming the information they want in their own way and therefore it is so difficult to be across every sphere. I have to admit that until a few weeks ago when Grok got into mainstream, that is the first time I had heard about hotline.ie, even though I have been really covering this space intensely for the past year. Our challenge is going to be how we get the messaging down. Following on from Senator Cosgrove's question, there has been huge movement in the past few weeks to see where the gaps are in the legislation, what we need to do from a legislator perspective over the nudify apps, and there is all this talk around banning under 16s, etc. We are all talking about the fact that we need campaigns but what do the witnesses think needs to happen in the next six months? Some of them spoke about coming together with other organisations like Spunout and CyberSafeKids. How would they like to be engaged in getting co-ordination on national campaigns and education programmes? It is great that Webwise is used across many of the schools but as was said there is a gap in GAA and karate clubs. What should our next steps be in the next six months?
Ms Karen McAuley:
To come back to what we were saying earlier, allowing for the Senator's Cosgrove point on who leads out on this and what is the home for a co-ordinated approach, I reiterate the importance of that and of achieving, insofar as possible, some kind of alignment about prioritising messaging. There is a lot of knowledge already so this is not about starting from scratch but we need to understand from children, young people and parents what they most want and need to hear from us all about this.
Ms Ciara Gill:
It needs a home. Where that is I am not quite sure but as part of it there needs to be engagement with all groups at a grassroots level. There are a lot of more vulnerable communities with different cultural backgrounds and languages that also need to be included because they may be coming at this from a different way to other communities.
Ms Fiona Jennings:
Yes, on the co-ordination piece; absolutely. We are partners in the Irish Safer Internet Centre and I know the committee will hear more from it next week. The ISPCC operates the child helpline, the National Parents Council operates the parent helpline, Webwise is the awareness centre and youth participation, and hotline.ie or the Irish Internet Hotline operates the hotline piece of that. The Irish Safer Internet Centre will be well positioned to support that co-ordination as well but there are so many moving parts to it it probably needs Government co-ordination to kick it off, whether that is a task force or a mapping of what is already out there. We have Coimisiún na Meán. It has national campaigns running. It is that but then cascading that down into the community to the parent who is hard of hearing and is struggling to support their child. It is about how that message gets downstream.
Ms Jane McGarrigle:
We support the promotion of the role of the Irish Safer Internet Centre as being well positioned to support any of that work. As regards addressing the gaps and mapping, great resources for schools are also available through Webwise. Resources are lacking for very vulnerable groups out there so it would be really important that some work is done to see who needs the most support and bringing everything together.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Go raibh maith agaibh. I will do one final round to get the witnesses' final thoughts on the session. They have one minute each and then we will close. I will start with An Garda Síochána and we will work around.
Ms Angela Willis:
The overarching message today is that we all need to educate ourselves, parents and children and we need to bring all of that together. By the time it comes to An Garda Síochána, unfortunately, the harm has happened and it is probably too late. Obviously, we do follow up. However, a whole-of-society approach is what is needed here and I thank the committee for the opportunity to attend today.
Ms Ciara Gill:
I am probably repeating slightly what I said earlier that the guidance, regulations and discussions in the area need to be framed in the children's rights context. Children have the right to be protected from harm and that seems to be where the discussions go. That makes sense but they also have so many other rights involved in the online world that also need to considered and do seem to be forgotten about a lot of the time. In particular, I refer to children's right to participation, their right to be heard and to be involved in any discussions that are going on around their involvement with the online world.
It is something they have under Article 12 of the UNCRC and they need to be involved and be considered properly in these discussions.
Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:
I will pick up on two things the commissioner said in her opening statement that sums this up. One is the layered approach, which is that we have regulation, law enforcement, education and there is the role of state bodies and civil society. That is very important in this. The second thing she said is that it is really about ensuring children get a positive online experience while being protected from harm. That also goes to the child rights approach to things. Those are two thoughts that summarise the discussion.
Ms Fiona Jennings:
This probably answers Senator Cosgrove’s question that I did not get to answer earlier. It is the child rights piece. We talked about the UNCRC but we also have an instrument called general comment No. 25 which gives effect to children’s rights in the digital environment. Two things can be true: children have the right to participate meaningfully and they have the right to be protected.
We carried out an analysis with our under-12s participation group around the better Internet for kids strategy. When we create the right space and right environment, children are well able to voice their opinions and it is really important that they be given that opportunity to do it. Again from an ISPCC point of view, we would like to see more of a concerted effort around prevention and early intervention so we are not dealing with the downstream effects of the harms that are happening online. Working together to a standard, and collegially, is really important as well.
Ms Jane McGarrigle:
I thank the committee to examining the topic and having us in today. I reiterate what our young people said: listen to and involve children in these discussions; make the platforms safer and address the design flaws that are in the system design; and on education and awareness, to consider the role of the services of the Irish Safer Internet Centre and all the key stakeholders and ensure we are looking at what gaps are there. We stand ready to assist in any of those actions.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil le gach duine. It was a very interactive and engaging discussion on a very important subject matter. We will be engaging with children in coming weeks to ensure their voices are heard as part of this committee.