Gillian Toole (Meath East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for enabling this discussion. Our most precious asset is our children. They are our future. There is a saying that it is much easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults.

I acknowledge the great work being done to ensure cybersecurity and to try to prevent cyber-bullying but I have to say that I concur with Professor Mary Aiken, who spoke on Monday morning with David McCullagh, that childhood has been rewired. Deputies raised issues with regard to access to adult content, cyber-bullying, body dysmorphia and other issues and I completely concur with them. Parents cannot compete with the continuous impact that is coming at them. I am not sure the Australian model is the best one to follow. I concur with Professor Aiken that tiered access and age-appropriate bans on accessing various content deserve more merit. We are, effectively, dealing with an uncontrolled experiment that has not been risk assessed.

In respect of the school curriculum, while the review of the anti-bullying policy in 2022, the current Bí Cineálta programme and all of those measures have been introduced to try to empower children to deal with what is online, we are putting the cart before the horse. It should be the platforms and algorithms that are dealt with, rather than making our education system align with them. Those programmes have not been risk assessed, to the best of my knowledge.

Going back to the policing of this, An Garda Síochána is under-resourced and the enforcement piece cannot be dealt with. Professor Aiken spoke in 2019 at an Oireachtas committee. She said she was aware of the importance of the tech industry to the economy but we have to grasp the nettle and that, perhaps, corporate social responsibility dealing with the algorithms is the way to go. There will be an economic cost, with reduced revenue perhaps, but the economic cost of the harm and trying to rehabilitate children who have been harmed is immeasurable.

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