Ms Phil Prendergast, MEP:

I thank Senator Susan O'Keeffe for her questions. We cannot overstate the importance of recent high profile cases involving cyberbullying. I used European safer Internet day on 5 February to call for a co-ordinated EU programme to tackle cyberbullying and an increase in funding for the European Union safer Internet programme, for which ¤55 million was provided between 2008 and 2013. Cyberbullying is a European problem which requires a European solution. Children across Europe are experiencing bullying online and new, more sophisticated ways of bullying are being found, for example, through Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and various other means at the disposal of young people, including some we adults do not know about.

There is no question that we need a safer online environment for young people. The European Parliament is sometimes accused of being a talking shop. We have to put our money where our mouth is. Senator Healy Eames and I are involved in the sexual health programme in schools. In the course of talks to schoolchildren we touch on issues such as self-esteem, sexuality and bullying. For a person looking on, bullying may be so subtle that it does not appear to be bullying. Anything that causes the fracturing of a person's self-esteem can have long-term, devastating consequences. I take on board Senator O'Keeffe's comments on the issue.

Senator Cáit Keane referred to online gambling, an issue about which I am very worried. Social responsibility is needed in this regard because the system can be abused. We have had high-profile cases involving individuals who had access to funds that did not belong to them. They were able to gamble these moneys and hide their gambling by means of clever accounting. This would not be the first time people have been able to hide what they were doing using clever accounting or by cooking the books. Online gambling is a cause of great concern. Procedures should be in place to flag when a certain amount of money has been spent. People sometimes enter what is almost a trance-like state as they become lost in the attractiveness of what is presented to them online. The comfort of their physical environment, as they sit in their armchair in front of their personal computer in their comfortable little world, can have devastating consequences for families and society. This is a societal problem that has become highly visible.

On the European youth guarantee scheme, a couple of weeks ago a young person expressed a view to me that the scheme would not have any effect on youth unemployment, especially in Ireland, and asked what policies, if any, would be introduced to curb youth unemployment.

The reason somebody so young would be so cynical is because we do not have great models to which we can point as having been successful. However, one must start somewhere. In trying to meet the needs of many, a good intention can be diluted by many other good intentions, to which sufficient resources are not given because of attempts to cover too many areas with too thin a veil. When we do this, inevitably things fall through the cracks.

The European Commission announcement in December of a youth unemployment package, previously known as the youth guarantee, was a positive sign of acknowledgement by the EU institutions of the extremely serious youth unemployment problem. As I stated already, youth unemployment in Greece and Spain is estimated to be more than 50% and is 32% in Ireland. There are currently 51,000 young people in Ireland who are unemployed. The affects of unemployment on younger people are longer term because there is a cut off point, in terms of age, at which employers are willing to give them a start as they may believe there is something wrong with a person because he or she has not worked previously. There is a need for a societal change in terms of how people who become long term unemployed are viewed.

Since I took up office, my colleagues and I in the Labour group of the European Parliament have been arguing for a focus on growth and employment needs in Ireland and Europe. What is required is a shift from the front loading of austerity measures to real investment. I agree with Senator Healy Eames that anything less than six or nine months participation in a scheme is unsatisfactory. The fact that people take part in such initiatives should be viewed as a positive and as a step at a time when we are in crisis. We are trying to do something about it. While currently a person can take up an internship for nine months, it may now be necessary to reduce this to six months. There is so much to do and doing even a small amount is better than doing nothing. We may need to adjust our viewpoints.

I agree that there is not enough money to do everything we want to do, that people are often frustrated because of this and end up doing something for the sake of it. During the course of the next seven years ¤6 billion will be spent on youth employment initiatives across Europe. That is not to be sniffed at. Ireland should get its share of that funding. We will make sure that people are aware of what is on offer and how it can be accessed and drawn down.