Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

After "teachers and students with internet safety advice;" to insert the following:
"acknowledges the value of quality-assured resources like Inspire Ireland?s ReachOut.com and others given that the Internet is now the preferred source of mental health information and support for our young people;
is aware of Inspire Ireland?s work on behalf of the Health Service Executive in the development of good practice guidelines for the safe delivery of online mental health support, due to be launched in the coming months;".

I welcome the Minister. I very much welcome this Fine Gael motion on bullying and the Internet, which is topical and well thought out. I commend the party members for it. They may be shocked to hear me commending them for something.

We are all aware of very recent cases where cyberbullying has led to suicide among young people.

Suicide is always a grave tragedy and where the Internet plays a role we must examine what can be done to prevent it. When I was in school technology, in terms of widespread use of the Internet, was not prevalent. At that stage we had only the advent of mobile phones, which were the size of bricks. I am not old but the technology was only coming in then and bullying occurred only in the school or in other social outlets where there was one to one contact or group interaction as opposed to the silent interactions on social media and other networks. Bullying is occurring in the school environment in an unseen way. Even though mobile phones are not allowed in the classroom and can be taken from students, students have their mobile phones with them and bullying occurs through Facebook, other social media and texting. While teachers and parents may not see the bullying occur on school campus, it happens through such networks on phones in students' pockets and when they open up their phones at lunch time they will see it. There is no point in saying students do not have their phones with them in school because they do. I know that from my Facebook news feed indicating that my cousins have posted pictures of themselves at lunchtime in school. Students have their phones with them in school and bullying will occur through their phones in their pockets.

Senators Power and Moloney mentioned that bullying affects young people in their homes, in their bedrooms, places where they are supposed to be safe and which should be a refuge for them. The story books tell us of trolls under the bridge but now there are Internet trolls like those on Twitter and Facebook who seem to live to give abuse. They probably have their own issues that need to be dealt with but there are people, those trolls, who give lots of people abuse. We see it on Twitter where high profile people such as celebrities and footballers get abuse. It is the normalising of that which is the problem and we need to deal with that.

I will not push our amendment to a vote but I wish to deal with the background to the motion. Many young people are very capable of pointing out the dangers of the social network interactions of which they are a part. They know about issues of anonymity and ignorance in terms of the consequence of one's actions in theory and many of them are capable of pointing to solutions such as education for victims, the need for the State through the Garda or other bodies to work with Facebook and other social media outlets. There are many programmes such as Stay Safe in schools. There is education in this area and there are many resources online for young people such as SpunOut which guides young people on how to be safe online and, more importantly, how to deal with cyberbullying or text bullying. As public representatives, we have a duty to bring these guidelines to the attention of young people and their parents and teachers. I acknowledge the good work being done by the Government and it is recognised in the motion. I hope the upcoming action plan will be given the importance required to tackle this problem.

The reason we tabled an amendment to the motion is to show the positive impact the Internet can have on young people who may be victims of bullying and who are dealing with mental health issues in general. We are the Goggle generation and we cannot run from that. People my age or younger who want to find out something search for it on Google. We need to examine how we can harness this for the good. That is the reason our amendment commends the work of ReachOut and other services which offer young people a friendly, accessible online service. One of the places young people are likely to go to get a solution is online. Inspire Ireland's work with the HSE in providing safety guidelines to young people will be launched in the next few months and it should be recognised by us. Our amendment to the motion is designed to show that there is a positive side to the Internet in terms of young people, bullying and mental health. For every case involving tragedy caused by bullying we need to take account of the hundreds of young people who find useful and important information online designed for young people through organisations such as ReachOut, Headstrong and SpunOut.

I hope the House will accept the amendment to the motion as it will give it a balanced approach. It would not take from the importance of the motion but it would give the positive side. The Internet, while it is a danger, it is also an avenue young people use to tackle these very issues. That is my input and I thank the Fine Gael Senators for bringing forward the motion.