Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and I welcome her commitment, with the establishment of Coimisiún na Meán in 2023, the appointment of Ireland's first online safety commissioner in March 2023 and, as the Minister said, enforcement of the EU's Digital Services Act. Internet safety legislation to require social media companies to keep children safe online passed into law in the UK last month. In theory this would make the UK the safest place to be online in the world. Here, however, while we have done a lot children are still experiencing harm online. We need urgency to address this. The research company CyberSafeKids states there is simply not enough Government funding allocated to address how we can support children and young people to be safe and smart online. The research shows that 31% of primary school children can go online whenever they want and 25% have experienced online bullying in the past year. These numbers rise to 73% and 40% respectively in secondary schools. There is a large increase. I ask the Minister to look at this.

See this speech in context