Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the response from the Minister of State. As I said, education will give the tools. For example, the 300 hours we are providing in secondary schools give people the tools to be able to deal with and cope with the challenges that are being thrown at them and means they are able to manage their emotions around that. As I said, this is just a snapshot in time. We need also to look at why people carry out this behaviour online and what are the drivers of that. This online behaviour can often be misinterpreted but we have to get behind this, as a culture, and there has to be a culture shift. We are dealing with this because it is new. It is a maturing environment and we are trying to alter the culture for our young people as they grow up. In the same way people have to conduct themselves socially and act in a socially acceptable way when face-to-face or on the telephone, there must be a socially acceptable way of conducting oneself online. I believe that really needs to be pushed as well.

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