Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

From the Government's perspective, our view, my view and the view of the Minister for communications is that the era of self-regulation is over and it has to be over. The Online Safety Commissioner needs to ensure - I know that she will - that our strategies and the commission's strategies focus on what is actually happening here and that includes algorithms. I fully agree with the Deputy that these need to be dealt with. The impact that the rabbit hole, or the doomscrolling as I have heard it referred to recently, is having not just on young people's concentration and their ability to focus but where it is leading them and where it is taking them is absolutely detrimental. I fully agree with the Deputy. I know that the Minister for communications will meet with all the social media companies in the weeks ahead.

It is obviously closely engaged with the Online Safety Commissioner. I, myself, have spoken to her. I will certainly be making sure that our engagement through education is absolutely front and centre of the work I do. However, we need to make sure that we are dealing with every element, including how we support parents to deal with this at home, how our schools and teachers make sure that the programmes we are rolling out are helpful for children and how we make sure that at the end of the day the social media companies that are not engaging, not taking down content and not sticking to the codes of conduct are either fined or that there are even greater repercussions.

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