Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise with the Taoiseach an issue that is a real concern around the mental health of young people and children. Paul Gordon of the National Youth Council of Ireland has said today that millennials, Generation Z and Generation Alpha may be the first to have worse outcomes than their parents since the foundation of the State. A National Youth Council survey shows that a third of respondents under 30 rarely or never feel optimistic about their future, citing the housing crisis and mental ill-health as reasons for this.

I will continue to raise the housing crisis in this House - we know the serious impact it is having on the mental health of young people - but I want to focus on the issue of social media and their detrimental impacts. Tonight an RTÉ "Prime Time" programme will expose how TikTok's algorithm, designed to increase revenues for a private company, is showing content which apparently promotes self-harm and even suicide to children as young as 13. How does the Government propose to address this serious issue? How does it propose to regulate social media companies to ensure that this sort of harmful impact on children is not felt? I am conscious that the Tánaiste, in his speech at the weekend to his party's Ard-Fheis, referred specifically to the detrimental impacts on children's mental health of their being exposed to content through social media. All of us as parents are alarmed about this. What will the Government do about it?

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