Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for that update. We all acknowledge that we are living in a very different world now from the one we were in ten or even 15 years ago. Children nowadays have so many more pressures on them and much of that is as a result of the online developments. Online gaming and social media are now an everyday part of many teenagers, if not most teenagers, lives. While that has benefits in that we will have a technically agile workforce when these children come out of school, it also poses challenges. These are challenges in respect of cyberbullying, online safety, and the implications that this can have on people’s mental health, particularly the mental health of developing teenagers.

The Government has introduced new laws to update our statute books to reflect this new online world. We have had Coco’s law, action when it comes to revenge porn, and hate speech also. How has the Department incorporated this new reality into the curriculum? It is great to hear what the Minister is saying about SPHE and the move to incorporate this into the next two, three or four years, if one is talking about primary school, but I am wondering about what is happening now in schools across the country to protect our children online?

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