Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-10
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue. The Government is talking a whole-of-society and a whole-of-government approach to online safety, recognising the rapid pace of change in the digital world and also the need for very co-ordinated, robust and rights-respecting responses. That response spans regulation, education, parental supports, age verification measures, curriculum reforms and school-level policies.
I am aware of that case yesterday and I heard reports in the media in relation to it. It does illustrate the enormous challenge and dangers here. Overall, we have to, through our education system, create a culture of strong self esteem and self respect among children from the earliest of ages. We have had to do this in the past to varying degrees in respect of other issues, be it drug addiction, alcohol addiction and so on. The most fundamental way of assisting society to cope is through very good policies at an early age and programmes from a psychological level which increase the self esteem of children to withstand and be resilient in the face of whatever comes at them in life subsequently. Of course, we can do much more than that.
Curricular reform is happening. There are school level policies and so on. The Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, with Coimisiún na Meán, now have stronger powers. There are obligations around harmful content. Stronger age verification for adult material is very important and risk mitigation requirements are designed to protect children.
At EU level, we are engaging. The digital age of majority must be considered across all member states to ensure harmonised protections under the Digital Services Act. We are also developing a secure privacy-focused approach to age verification and we are working to include age verification functionality in Ireland's digital wallet under the EU eIDAS project. That is about giving parents and young people a robust Government-backed mechanism to protect privacy. A large-scale pilot is planned for early next year.
We are strengthening digital well-being and online safety supports in schools. We have updated our child protection procedures. There is a lot happening in education, to be fair. There is a digital strategy for schools up to 2027. Oide technology in education provides professional learning for teachers and Webwise continues to lead on national awareness training, classroom resources on cyberbullying, image sharing, social media and emerging online risks. We have also acted to reduce mobile phone distraction and support student well-being during school day. We have introduced the full ban on personal phone use in primary schools and strict restrictions at post-primary level. I remember last year when the pouches were introduced, they were ridiculed in here. It was a classic Opposition response.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-10