Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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108. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if he will put a rapid alert system in place to detect and combat bullying of children and young adults through the electronic and social media; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43160/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The most important step in addressing bullying, including cyberbullying, is for parents to talk to children about bullying whether it is through social media or not. Data gathered from nine year old children as part of Growing Up in Ireland, the National Longitudinal Survey commissioned by my department, showed that based on responses from their mothers, 24% of children had been victims of bullying in the past year. This represents a significantly lower proportion than that reported by children themselves, which was reported at 40%, suggesting either that many parents are unaware that their child has experienced bullying in the previous year, or that they may have different perspectives about what constitutes bullying.

The Action Plan On Bullying: Report of the Anti-Bullying Working Group to the Minister for Education and Skills was published in January 2013 clearly recognised the necessity to tackle this issue in a holistic way which saw schools as pivotal, but placed the issue within a much wider social context. The Plan sets out twelve actions aimed at helping to prevent and tackle all forms of bullying in primary and post-primary schools. The actions focus on support for schools, teacher training, research and awareness raising. Good progress has been made in implementing the actions set out in the report. New National Anti-Bullying Procedures for schools were published in September 2013 and are currently being implemented by all 4,000 primary and post primary schools in the country. Training materials for parents, teachers and Boards of Management are also being developed and rolled out. Cyberbullying is just one aspect of bullying, but one given the rapid expansion of access to technology by young people has come much more sharply into focus. The Stay Safe Programme, a personal safety skills programme for children is currently being updated to be available to schools during the 2015/2016 school year. The lessons on Bullying in the revised Stay Safe Programme relate to the types of Bullying Behaviour outlined in the definition of Bullying in the Anti-Bullying Procedures.

Schools are strengthening collaboration and interaction with youth services and promote the active participation by pupils in youth focused services within their local communities. DCYA supports the National Youth Health Programme which is in partnership with the HSE and the National Youth Council of Ireland. The programme's aims are to provide a broad-based, flexible health promotion/education support and training service to youth organisations and to all those working with young people in out-of-school settings, and includes programmes aimed at exploring bullying and cyberbullying with young people. Young people being bullied, or indeed those engaging in bullying behaviour, will sometimes need support which goes beyond that can be provided by their immediate family. Work is currently underway with primary care teams in the HSE to pilot 'social prescribing'. Social prescribing creates a formal means of enabling primary care services to refer young people with social, emotional or practical needs which include experience of being bullied or showing bullying behaviour to a variety of holistic, local non-clinical services.

The Office for Internet Safety is an Executive Office of the Department of Justice and Equality has lead responsibility for internet safety in Ireland, particularly as it relates to children. In the Department of Justice and Equality, the Office for Internet Safety (OIS) acts as the co-ordinator in Ireland for the EU Safer Internet Programme. The OIS has a dedicated website which contains information and links on internet safety, it also has a series of booklets on internet safety issues which are available to parents and teachers. In addition, it produces awareness raising materials for the Safer Internet Day which is held in February each year. In 2013 and 2014 these concentrated on the issue of cyberbullying. As part of its work it holds an annual Safer Internet Day, which has included a rollout of a social marketing campaign specifically targeted at young people. The resources produced by the Office for Internet Safety makes available free of charge, in hard and soft copy, information resources on combating cyberbullying and on general safety online.

The Law reform Commission is currently conducting a project on Cyber-crime affecting personal safety, privacy and reputation, including cyber-bullying.The project will include an analysis of the types of harmful behaviour involved in this area, in particular bullying, and the impact which cyber-bullying through social media has had. The Commission’s report and recommendations, when available, will also inform consideration of any future action by Government in this area.

The Minister of Communications established an Internet Content Governance Advisory Group under the chair of Dr. Brian O’Neil in 2013 to ensure our national policy represents best practice in offering the same online protections to our citizens as those available in the offline world. The Group’s Report which was published in June, 2014 included wide ranging recommendations. Many of these recommendations were administrative in nature, and are being implemented, a number of structural recommendations are currently under consideration.

The internet is a fluid, evolving environment, requiring policy makers, industry and relevant stakeholders to be flexible as they adapt to changing and emerging contexts. Parents also have a very important role in talking to their children about these issues and becoming familiar with tools and resources that will enable their children to take advantage of the many great opportunities the internet offers in a safe and positive manner. The internet does not now and will not stand still. But the work I have outlined will assist in shaping the governmental response, in the interests of all citizens.