John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In my first week of university nearly ten or 11 years ago, one of the first books I read was John Stewart Mill's On Liberty. He was a Liberal MP and Victorian political thinker.The main premise of his argument was he who knows only of his own side knows little of that. His main point was that for your argument to have any validity, it had to be tested in the court of public opinion against someone else’s argument. That is the only way you could be certain your argument was either correct or right, when you heard the other side. When we bring that argument forward to the modern day era, we have the problem of the spread of disinformation, online conspiracy theories and people retreating into echo chambers where they only hear people who agree with them.

I pay tribute to Finland and the work the Finnish department of education is trying to do in this area.What it has done is interesting. In 2014, the Russian Government attacked Finland with advertising through Facebook and other sites to try to destabilise it. As a result, the Finnish Government introduced classes for primary schoolchildren on critical thinking and how to identify misinformation and disinformation online. It was visionary and became a part of the Finnish curriculum in 2016. It is a wonderful concept for Ireland to consider. I would appreciate a debate on what the Department of Education intends to do in terms of educating primary and secondary level children on how to identify and deal with misinformation online and be more critical thinkers.