Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

While we are talking, our phones are listening. In the next five minutes, whatever we have spoken about will pop up on our phones. We not only have to deal with children; we also have to deal with adults. What happens online is getting into all of our thoughts. If we look up anything, we will be sent four or five things based on that. If what happens online does that to adults, what is it doing to children? People who sign up to online outlets are sent images of people who are self harming and so on. People are also sent images that are not true at all. People are shown doing things that they are not doing, images which are AI generated. Now we do not even know whether we are looking at something that is real.

Transition year students from St. Mary's in Charleville visited the Houses today. They came from Cork, Limerick, Spain and Ukraine. I asked them how they look at social media. They told me sometimes they cannot tell whether things are real. Banning something for those aged up to 16 is not the answer. We need regulation. We also need accountability from parents. How many parents hand their children phones at eight years of age? The responsibility should not be on governance. That is part of it, but the responsibility comes back to parents giving children devices to keep them quiet rather than doing things that are normal. Parents allow children to look online at whatever they like. Parents need to take responsibility.

Certain sites should not be allowed because people can go online by giving false information. AI generated content can state people are different and then they can get online. We need to examine the tools we can work with, namely parents, children, the Government and legislation. That is what we need to do. All of the parts need to work together. We need to work together to make sure that our children and parents are protected into the future.

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