Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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20. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the contact she has made with Facebook regarding Neknominations; the response given, if any; and if she plans further actions regarding same. [6636/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Government is very concerned generally about the issue of the level of alcohol consumption among young people, but specifically about the recent tragic death involving a young person participating in the 'Neknominations' trend. Both the Taoiseach and I have condemned the craze and called on individuals not to partake or to encourage others to partake in such reckless and life-threatening behaviour.

A member of staff of my Ministerial office was in contact, by both telephone and by email, with the head of Policy in Ireland of Facebook to discuss the matter of 'neknominations' and Facebook has provided me with the following formal response:

"At Facebook we try to be a platform where people can share freely whilst still protecting the rights of others. We do not tolerate content which is directly harmful, for example bullying, but controversial or offensive behaviour is not necessarily against our rules. We encourage people to report things to us which they feel breaks our rules so we can review and take action on a case by case basis. We also give people the ability to remove themselves from an uncomfortable conversation through tools such as untagging and blocking."

Much of this kind of interaction is obviously between adults rather than children. However, as we have unfortunately recently seen, the consequences of this sort of activity for young people can be potentially lethal. What may appear to young people to be a fun thing to do, may in reality be abusive and dangerous drink misuse. It also reflects our cultural attitudes to alcohol in Ireland, which very often do not set the best examples for our children. To counter this culture and the potential consequences it can have for children and young people, both Government and our society generally will need to strengthen its efforts to disseminate information and educational messages about the dangers and possible consequences of these behaviours.