John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up on a point Deputy Neville made about the abuse adults suffered online. One can only appreciate the significant impact that also has on children when they suffer abuse or bullying online. As adults, we have perspective. We receive political abuse online that we might describe as bullying, but we should have the perspective as adults to be able to tolerate that. Not that we should have to tolerate it, but we should be able to deal with it. However, for a young vulnerable child who is unsure of themselves to suffer that will have a very severe and detrimental impact on their well-being. We have seen some catastrophic, sorrowful and damaging impacts from that. It is a point well-made that nobody should suffer it, but we need to go further in protecting children from such suffering.

I agree with Deputy Neville that we have made some strides in recent years. We have seen the establishment of Coimisiún na Meán, we have seen the introduction of Coco's law, the Digital Safety Act and the online safety code. However, I cannot help but think that, in the years to come, we will reflect somewhat on the recent era in the same manner that we currently reflect on how we allowed cigarettes to be so freely available to a generation previous to us. We will ask how it was that we did not recognise the dangers of allowing young people access to such a broad sphere of unregulated information, including information that often has a bias or was sent out to target and, unfortunately, hurt people.

One of the great challenges here is that, as soon as we come to terms with one aspect of the online world and as soon as we generate regulation or start to regulate and monitor behaviour, a new sphere or extension of the online world will create new challenges for us. There will always be darker forces out there. It will be very interesting to observe the ban that has been put in place in Australia, which many people have commented on. Undoubtedly, efforts will made to try to undermine that and try to get access for under-16s to the online world. That is one of the reasons I do not feel the ban will achieve what people think it might. I would not agree on such an outright ban for young people in Ireland. What we need is greater education around the healthy use of the space. As many people with more knowledge of the area than me have said, we should put the obligation on the platforms and the companies to act responsibly, regulate appropriately and look out for poor and harmful behaviour online.

Young people should be taught in schools or at home, using the guide that Coimisiún na Meán has, how to report illegal and harmful content. If more people were aware of that information and it was spread further, people would be able to report harmful or damaging content. That would be beneficial.

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