Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 24:

In page 19, to delete lines 34 to 37 and substitute the following: “(f) encourage research, promote, endorse, evaluate and approve educational initiatives and community awareness programmes and activities, including in the area of online safety, and co-operate for that purpose with educational bodies and community awareness programmes, and otherwise promote public awareness, knowledge and understanding, in relation to matters connected to its functions,”.

The purpose of this amendment is to expand existing functions in the Bill, which equips the media commission with an educational remit. The current provision is welcome. However, this relates to all the functions of the media commission, not just the online safety functions. The Bill in its current form does not give the commission the power to evaluate and regulate the wide-ranging educational programmes on online safety that go into schools and community awareness programmes. The amendment seeks to provide the commission with the power to evaluate and regulate educational and community awareness online safety programmes. The Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media recommended that a regulatory role in online safety education be explicitly included in the Bill. Similar recommendations were made by the joint committee on education last August. The amendment seeks to act on those recommendations and would equip the media commission with an evaluative and regulatory function as it relates to online safety education.