Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 24 Apr 2024

Smartphone and Social Media Use: Motion [Private Members]

An Cathaoirleach

I remind Members that the combined opening speeches of the proposer and seconder shall not exceed 16 minutes and all other Senators have six minutes. I will call on Senators Seery Kearney and Dolan in a moment, and then there will follow the normal pattern where each Senator has six minutes. The Minister has indicated that she wishes to come in early in the debate and she has 15 minutes.

I welcome the distinguished ladies of Ballina and Westport in County Mayo to the Public Gallery. They are guests of the Minister of State, Deputy Dara Calleary. They are all very welcome. I was going to say "Mayo for Sam" but I hope that it is Cork for Sam. The ladies are guests of a wonderful parliamentarian and Minister of State. He is doing a great job for them in County Mayo. I hope that the ladies enjoy the rest of their stay here and that he at least buys them dinner.

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, to the House. She, too, is doing a fine job as Minister. She is very welcome and I thank her for being here.

Anois, glaoim ar an Seanadóir Mary Seery Kearney whom I believe is sharing time with Senator Dolan. Is it agreed that Senator Seery Kearney will have ten minutes and Senator Dolan will have six minutes? Agreed.

Senator Mary Seery Kearney

I move:

“That Seanad Éireann:

acknowledges that:

- the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022, and the establishment of the online safety and media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, is a key Government strategy in the protection of children online;

- Coimisiún na Meán is developing Ireland’s online safety framework, through binding online safety codes in its capacity as Ireland’s Digital Services Coordinator under the EU’s Digital Services Act, and it is currently developing the first online safety code to apply to video-sharing platform services;

- the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022 contains financial penalties for failures to comply with the online safety codes;

- the Department and HSE have worked collaboratively to ensure that online signposting tools for mental health supports are in place, such as YourMentalHealth.ie;

- the Department, HSE and SpunOut are collaborating to commission the development of a dynamic web-based signposting tool for young people aged 16-34 years, to support their mental health;

- CyberSafe Kids, an organisation dedicated to online safety and healthy use of the internet, was allocated funding under Budget 2024 to support two campaigns - ‘Disconnect to Reconnect’ and a pre-Christmas campaign supporting parents to ensure their children have a safe, healthy and positive experience online;

- the Department of Education has led on supporting the responsible use of smartphones in supporting schools with a voluntary code in their use and that online safety, and the safe and ethical use of digital technologies, is a key component of the Department’s Digital Strategy for Schools;

- webwise (webwise.ie) promotes the autonomous, effective and safe use of the internet by young people, through a sustained information and awareness strategy targeting school leaders, teachers, parents and children themselves, with consistent and relevant 882 24 Aibreán 2024 messages by the development and dissemination of resources that help teachers integrate digital citizenship and online safety into teaching and learning in their schools (mostly through delivery of the Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum);

notes that:

- while the online world presents our children and young people with a breadth of wonderful opportunities, it can, however, also expose them to negative and potentially harmful experiences;

- assistive/digital technology can be highly beneficial for children with additional needs;

- many schools have already taken the initiative to put in place a voluntary code banning smart phone ownership and restricting their use;

- much of the concern regarding smartphone use has centred on cyberbullying, and while this is extremely important, but of equally important concern is the mounting evidence that rise in the use of smartphones among children under the age of 16 and its impact on mental health, where recommender algorithms are effectively promoting eating or feeding disorders and self-harm or suicide on video-sharing platforms, amongst a range of other harmful and illegal content;

- Coimisiún na Meán published a report in September 2023, to inform its approach to regulation of video sharing platform services entitled ‘Video-Sharing Platform Services; Online Harms Evidence Review’, that highlighted the harms manifesting on video sharing platforms;

- the US Surgeon General published a report entitled ‘Social Media and Youth Mental Health’, that warned of the risks of social media usage on youth mental health - including sleep deprivation, depression and anxiety; the data that led to this warning comes largely from research linking social media use to outcomes in adolescence;

- the business model of social media platforms is reliant on the attention capture of service users and that this model disincentivises such platforms from discouraging prolonged use;

- the CyberSafeKids smartphone usage report, published in February this year, showed that:

- almost a quarter (24 per cent) of six-year-olds have their own smartphone;

- 45 per cent of ten-year-olds are allowed use their smartphones in their bedrooms;

- just 28 per cent of parents use parental control; and

- 20 per cent of parents felt the good the internet could bring their children outweighed the risks;

- in a meeting in February, social media companies refused a request from the Minister for Education for the introduction of greater measures to protect children online and were not forthcoming on strengthening age verification;

calls on the Government to:

- acknowledge in policies and in future budget allocations that tackling the harms from excessive smartphone and social media use requires a whole-of-society approach, to include action by:

- policy makers and legislators;

- technology companies;

- parents and caregivers;

- children and adolescents;

- legislate to impose a smartphone ban on ownership by any person aged 13 and under;

- review the options, including legislative, to enforce the digital age of consent to ensure that no person aged under 16 years is permitted to open a social media account;

- oblige smartphone and social media companies to issue alert mental health warnings to users at 30 minute intervals;

- oblige smartphone and social media companies to advertise and make more transparent the options and usage of parental controls;

- enhance and increase age-appropriate digital literacy programs in schools to teach children about online safety, privacy and responsible usage of smartphones;

- include mandatory mental health and well-being education in school curricula, to raise awareness about the potential negative impacts of excessive screen time and social media use, to encourage cognitive security and cognitive resilience;

- enhance supports for mental health professionals to provide counselling services and support for children experiencing mental health issues related to smartphone use;

- promote, via a public information campaign, digital detox periods and healthy habits for screen time management among children, to include guides around screen time management, warning of the impacts of smartphone use of anxiety, social isolation, withdrawal and mental health;

- promote balanced and healthy active lifestyles for children and young people, encouraging activities that involve engagement with others and the importance of investment in under-age sports, arts, activities, youth clubs, scouting and guiding, Foroige and other extra-curricular activities; and

- implement stricter regulation on the design and marketing of apps and online content targeting children to minimize harmful influences.”

Senator Aisling Dolan

I second the motion.

Senator Mary Seery Kearney

Everybody is welcome. I thank the Minister for taking the time to attend. I appreciate that she is very busy at the moment so she is very good to come here.

As long ago as 2010, the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Use published an article that said smartphone use and social media platforms - platforms, apps and games - were designed to be addictive, which is what is addressed in this motion. We have the American Time Use Survey, which was published in Jonathan Haidt's recent book, and shows that the number of minutes young people of primary school age play with or interact with their peers has decreased from 160 minutes a day to fewer than 15 minutes a day. In January or February of this year, the CyberSafeKids report showed that 24% of 6-year-olds have their own smart device, and 48% of 10-year-olds are in their bedrooms on their own and unsupervised with a small device. In September 2023, the Journal of Psychology stated that interaction with parents has decreased, which is precious social interaction. We have the publication by the US Surgeon General of a mental health warning that there is sleep deprivation, mental health and anxiety.

In January of this year, President Macron gathered together a group of experts and set them the task of compiling a report. They have a piece of work that asks them to: develop a shared understanding of the impact of screen usage on the physical and mental health of children and teenagers; assess the effectiveness of existing regulatory measures, particularly parental controls; draft a doctrine for regulating screens; and propose and promote tools adapted to all audiences with age differentiated approaches.

A group of high-school students in the States produced a study. They decided that they would monitor their TikTok use because they found it so addictive. Each Monday, over a number of weeks, they shared the screentime report on their phones with their teachers. They monitored their usage and to begin with were quite frightened by the results. They showed that once they were all conscious of their usage and put in place protocols, their screentime decreased considerably. Once they were in a place of awareness their mental health improved and their anxiety levels were more proportionate.

In this motion we call for a ban on smartphone device ownership for people who under 13 years of age. We also call for the enforcement of the digital age of consent, on which there was a lot of debate concerning the Data Protection Act, the GDPR implementation Act. There was a lot of consideration of the digital age of consent which is 16 years of age yet we have social media accounts permitted from 13 years of age. In actual fact the business model of these companies is based on the addictive capturing of attention by the social media platforms. It is designed to hold young people and, in fact, all of us. That is, everyone outside of politics, where we are all a bit obsessed with checking our phones anyway. If one went into an average café or restaurant, one would see people sitting together on their phones. There is a marked reduction of personal interaction.

While the Fine Gael group is focusing on young people in this motion, there is a change in our society’s culture, how we interact and from where we get our information. I am sure the Minister is seeing it on doors, as I am, with people saying they do not follow the mainstream media anymore and get all of their information from social media. I find that very disturbing and upsetting.

We need to take major steps and start the conversation. I appreciate that the Minister will not run into the Seanad with legislation next week. However, we need to start the conversation if we are to increase what we are doing and set a cultural tone to the effect that the ownership of smart devices should not happen. If the children of people in these mega companies are not allowed smart devices, it tells us everything we need to know. Once Holy Communion age was hit in our house, we were asked whether someone could buy a phone, to which the answer was “No, not until secondary school”. This raises the potential of peer pressure. I am reasonably resilient in that respect but, by introducing legislation, we would be supporting other parents. The peer pressure would be out the window because we would be saying that they should not get these devices. As with smoking and alcohol, there should be an age threshold, and only after reaching it should someone be permitted to own a device and have a social media account.

In looking at it, we need to use the precautionary principle. I accept that we need more longitudinal studies, more research and so on but we must prioritise safety. We must be mindful of the fact that a for-profit attention economy is at the heart of smart devices and social media.

I acknowledge the huge steps forward with the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, the Digital Services Act, and the establishment of the commission. I met with Niamh Hodnett and her team only three weeks ago. They are very impressive. They are developing the code of conduct. Everything that they are doing there is really fantastic. I believe they will have serious teeth in time. Investigations have commenced. I agree that we have set a lot of things in motion. However, they are not the only solution.

I worry about sleep deprivation, anxiety and mental health issues. When we consider and examine such issues, we see that they are not the only answer. The Minister for Education facilitated a meeting and when she asked a question about age verification she got no answer to it. She is only enabled to talk about voluntary codes in schools. It is not fair either to put all of the emphasis on the schools doing the regulation. The assumption is that if they regulate for smartphones then that will deal with it. Parents have a huge role here and should have a huge responsibility, but maybe they do not consider that there are dangers. Maybe they do not get it, but I get it. I have received a huge number of emails. I have talked about this for years. Because I practise in privacy law, I read books earlier and was very sensitive to Mary Aiken's position on things, so I have been more sensitised to it but, in general, people are perhaps under pressure. They put on Cocomelon or whatever else and give it to a child so that it will give them a bit of peace, which might allow them to make a phone call. I am not condemning anybody for doing that. However, the Government needs to show leadership in this area. There are great things. I am sure my colleagues will talk about assistive technology, and all of the benefits that come with smart devices. In school, there are great things. There is connectivity and all of those things, but at the heart of this business model is an addictive piece of engineering that is designed to capture youth at the cost of sports, physical activities and social development and interaction.

Yesterday at the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth we had the consultative youth panel of the Ombudsman for Children, and the ombudsman before us. We talked about AI and what the consultative forum does. I took a punt and asked the members of the consultative forum what they think. They are teenagers in secondary schools. All of them condemned the ownership of smartphones before the age of 13. Some of them had phones since they were six. They said there should be absolutely no social media until the mid-teens because it causes mental health issues. They wish they had never had a phone. Even though I think I am pretty radical on it, they were much more radical than I would be. They were much more in favour of saying this cannot happen and this should not be like that. I thank the Minister. I will hand over to Senator Dolan now.

Senator Aisling Dolan

I thank the Minister for being with us today. This is a very important topic. The purpose of bringing this Fine Gael Private Members' motion, in particular in relation to smartphones and social media use, is how we regulate it. I have talked to parents, school principals, schools and teachers. Schools are taking the lead themselves. Without any regulation, they are putting bans in place in primary schools and post-primary schools. They are trying to manage this but we need additional support for children, young people and parents because it is very difficult.

As my colleague stated, a quarter or 24% of six-year-olds have their own smartphone. They literally have access to the world in their pocket. Just 28% of parents use parental controls. Ireland prides itself on education. We are proud of the fact that we have the highest number of third level graduates in the world. We pride ourselves on everything that we do well, but we also need to pride ourselves on the measures we are taking to protect children and young people and to support parents on this issue. There can be a lack of knowledge of the impact. We see the very graphic road safety campaigns about what happens with phone use. We hear about people using their phones to text while they are driving and suddenly we see these graphic images of what can happen when they lose attention for a few minutes. Should we also have campaigns as well, with the assistance of the Department, on the impact of the overuse of smartphones - children being up to 3 o'clock and 4 o'clock in the middle of the night or when a child gets withdrawn, anxious or isolated when a parent is trying to work out how to have a happy child who is engaged in sports activities?

Part of what we are saying is that there is a need for a whole-of-government approach. It is very much about how we fund clubs and sports. Sports capital funding is all part of it. We must support parents, coaches and volunteers to get involved, but there also needs to be a campaign of awareness. There needs to be something with teeth. Teeth is saying that under the age of 13, people are not allowed to purchase a smartphone. That is a bulwark parents have. They can say that is the guidance. We know because we have the information and the research and we know the impacts of this. A public campaign of awareness could show the impacts because what we want to see is a healthy, happy child or young person or a student in school.

I sit on the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. One of the very first reports I did was about how one in three children suffers from cyberbullying. It is non-stop. It is all through the night. They can be on their phones and not sleeping. Their attention spans are lower. We are seeing this in particular since Covid. The Minister probably recognises that life changed during Covid. Everything became more insular. People were in their homes. Everything was online, including shopping. Of course there was a lot more dependence on our phones, especially for young people. There is something that we can do now. We know about the commercial aspect and that it is addictive. We see it ourselves. We know that it dictates our moods and causes mood swings. I say that as an adult who did not grow up with a smartphone and who has only had a smartphone in the past ten or 15 years. In the past 20 years we have witnessed the impact of the Internet and smartphones. Ireland, as a country, can take a stand.

We are asking the Minister to give us the teeth to implement this motion. Let us give it teeth. Let us have a campaign that shows graphically the impact on young people. With our schools, let us try to show we are able to give guidance and support to parents and that we are there with them. We want to say that it is the right thing to do not to have a phone until a child is of a certain age, that a child does not have consent up to the age 16 to open accounts, and that there is digital consent. This approach could also include the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. We are working with the companies to ensure those measures are in place.

I thank the Minister for her time. She will hear from many of our other colleagues here but there is a lead, which I believe is for her Department to deal with social media companies. That will ensure we have a future here in Ireland of which we are proud. We are proud of our education. Let us also be proud of ensuring that we have healthy, happy children that are not impacted by the overuse of screens and smartphones.

Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (Deputy Catherine Martin)

Gabhaim buíochas leis na Seanadóirí as an deis an t-ábhar tábhachtach seo a phlé. Gabhaim buíochas leis na Seanadóirí as ucht a gcuid oibre agus táim ag tnúth le tuairimí na gComhaltaí eile a chloisteáil.

The Government is not opposing the motion. As Minister for the media, the issue of online safety is one that I and the Government as a whole, take very seriously, in particular the safety of our children online. It is a matter of priority. The motion identifies issues of concern in respect of children, social media, and smartphones.

I will take this opportunity to update the House in respect of the work that the Government is prioritising on online safety and children using social media online. As Members will see, this is an issue that touches on many areas of government.

I acknowledge the work that is under way across the Government, including, for example, in mental health, education and justice.

The Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, which is landmark legislation, was enacted in 2022 and commenced in March 2023. It established a new online safety and media regulator in Coimisiún na Meán. I acknowledge the breadth and depth of engagement by Members of this House during the passage of the Act through the Oireachtas. A key priority in drafting the legislation was to address clear concerns regarding the exposure of children to harmful online content. In particular, there is a real concern that the design and functioning of social media services can lead to children engaging in addictive behaviours that lead them down rabbit holes and can have significant effects on their physical and mental well-being. We must ensure that when using the Internet, children can do so safely.

Coimisiún na Meán is aware of these issues. It is tasked with developing and enforcing a new online safety code under a new regulatory framework. An coimisiún is currently analysing the feedback received as part of the public consultation process that closed at the end of January. It will take that feedback into account in revising the draft code. An coimisiún hopes to publish a revised draft in the coming weeks. It intends to adopt a final code later this year. Broadly, these codes will provide for the regulation of content moderation and delivery systems in use by designated online services in order to protect users from harmful online content such as serious cyberbullying and material that promotes or encourages eating disorders, self-harm or suicide.

A necessary and important part of developing the online safety code was and is consultation. That consultation included the establishment by an coimisiún of a youth advisory committee, as provided for in the Act. The committee gave an coimisiún feedback on the draft code. As I mentioned, the public consultation process concluded at the end of January this year.

The draft code, and its provisions, will address a number of the issues raised in today's motion. For instance, it will set out how platforms must operate effective risk mitigation measures in regard to profiling algorithms and age-inappropriate recommendations. The draft code will, for the first time, set out obligations in respect of age verification and age assurance measures. For instance, it will require designated video-sharing platform services, such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, to effectively enforce the minimum age for opening an account with those services. Although there are many more measures set out within the draft code, the final element I highlight relates to parental controls. This measure will require video-sharing platform services to make those controls available to users. In addition, services will be required to draw users' attention to the availability of the controls and to clearly explain their functionality.

The Online Safety and Media Regulation Act is significant legislation. I share the desire to have the binding code in place as quickly as possible in order to safeguard children online. However, it is equally important that the code should be robust and viable. Coimisiún na Meán must strike that balance. Once the code is in place, the robust suite of investigative and enforcement powers provided for under the Act come into play. In this regard, the Act enables an coimisiún to arrange authorised officer investigations of non-compliance with the online safety code, including searches of premises. It may subsequently pursue the imposition of financial sanctions, which can be up to €20 million, or 10% of relevant turnover, whichever is higher. It also may pursue criminal sanctions against individuals.

Another sign of how things have changed for big tech and online platforms is the entering into force of the EU's Digital Services Act, which is another landmark piece of legislation. This EU regulation has applied in full since February. It provides for some level of regulation for almost all online services operating within the EU. The most stringent obligations have applied to very large online platforms and very large online search engines since August 2023. The European Commission leads on the regulation of these services, with the support of a network of digital services co-ordinators across EU member states. In Ireland, under implementing legislation, Coimisiún na Meán has been designated as our digital services co-ordinator.

Among others, the obligations applying to very large online services include requirements to complete risk assessments in respect of the exposure of children and young people to illegal and harmful online content. Services must then address this risk of exposure, including by means of age verification or age assurance. The penalties for a breach of such obligations under the Digital Services Act are up to 6% of the offending service's global turnover. Thus far, there are 22 very large online services designated under the Digital Services Act. Of that number, 13 are established in Ireland, including X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.

It is important to state that enforcement of these rules has already begun. In February, the European Commission launched an investigation into TikTok for possible breaches of the Digital Services Act. This potential breach includes issues relating to its use of recommender systems, how it does, or does not, protect children and whether its mitigation measures, notably its age verification tools, are reasonable, proportionate and effective. As I mentioned, the European Commission is supported by a network of digital services co-ordinators. Coimisiún na Meán stands ready to play its role in the Commission's investigation. I mention this in the context of the RTÉ "Prime Time" programme about TikTok and the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre report, both of which covered the impact of recommender systems and the spread of harmful online content.

The European Commission is looking closely at the task-and-reward features of TikTok Lite, citing them as potentially addictive and harmful to the mental health of users, including teenagers, and a possible breach of the Digital Services Act. The Commission is currently seeking further information from TikTok about its safety measures before considering any enforcement action. While the TikTok Lite service is not currently available in Ireland, this development is further evidence of the momentous changes in the regulation of social media platforms. In fact, TikTok Lite has suspended its task-and-reward feature and is constructively engaging with the European Commission on the matter. That is regulation in action.

Last week, representatives from the social media platforms were before the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, where the agenda was a discussion on protecting children in the use of artificial intelligence. It is important that these companies continue to engage constructively in this process to ensure we create a safe online environment for our children. Legislation like the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act and the Digital Services Act are important first steps - the first of many steps - that will put online safety at the heart of online regulation in Ireland and throughout Europe. Online safety for our children is of paramount importance.

As provided for under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, Coimisiún na Meán has a role in delivering and supporting educational initiatives, including with bodies like the Department of Education, webwise.ie and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. These initiatives cover online safety, media literacy and initiatives such as The Respect Effect, an anti-bullying educational resource for junior cycle students that was launched by the Online Safety Commissioner in September 2023. Developed by Webwise, it is designed to empower students to take positive action against online bullying, develop their resilience and help them to understand the impacts of cyberbullying.

The motion incudes calls on the Government to act on mental health and education. In this regard, there is a suite of initiatives being implemented across the Government. The HSE will work with CyberSafeKids to support two campaigns, namely, Disconnect to Reconnect and a pre-Christmas campaign supporting parents to ensure their children have a safe, healthy and positive experience online. CyberSafeKids was allocated €100,000 in budget 2024 for these initiatives. A range of supports are available to schools to help them to prevent cyberbullying and promote responsible Internet use, including through the social, personal and health education, SPHE, curriculum, webwise.ie and the national anti-bullying website, tacklebullying.ie.

The Department of Health and Healthy Ireland are currently working with European partners on a joint action under the EU's health programme to set out best practice with regard to the restriction of advertising of unhealthy or harmful foods and beverages to children. Healthy Ireland is engaging with an coimisiún on this initiative.

In terms of mental health supports, the Department of Health and the HSE work together to ensure online signposting tools are in place, such as yourmentalhealth.ie. In addition, online supports to meet new and emerging mental health needs are being supported, including remote online counselling services in a pilot primary care mental health hub initiative and awareness training to build resilience and peer support. The Department of Health, the HSE and spunout.ie are collaborating on a dynamic web-based signposting tool for young people aged 16 to 34 to encourage them to recognise mental health difficulties and signpost them to relevant supports.

While the Government is not opposing the motion, there are two issues in particular that must be addressed. The first is the proposal to ban ownership of smartphones by under-13s. The second is the call to legislate to enforce a digital age of consent.

Regarding restrictions on smartphone use, the proposed ban would be very difficult to implement and raises complex questions. I understand the concerns of Members and parents in this regard but implementing such a ban would be fraught with difficulty and complex from a regulation perspective, for example, identifying the owner of a smartphone. It is unclear how such a ban might work. Specifically identifying the owner of a smartphone and then identifying who would be liable for sanction for a breach of any ban would be complicated, given that the purchaser and user of a phone are not necessarily the same. In addition, implementing such a ban would be complicated, given the option of online sales from other member states. Banning an age cohort from owning a smartphone in one EU member state would raise issues with regard to the EU Single Market principles of freedom of movement of goods and services. Finally, this approach does not consider whether all Irish parents would support a blanket ban. It is possible that parents would not support such a unilateral ban. There are genuine reasons parents might want or need their children to own a smartphone. Many parents will correctly feel that it should be their decision and they are the ones who know their children best.

While the concerns about children owning smartphones are absolutely understandable, the key issue appears to be one of access to social media, specifically, access to social media applications on a smartphone by children, rather than ownership. For this reason, the Government is focusing on dealing with access and usage of smartphones through hybrid community and national initiatives. Foremost in my mind in this regard is the guidance issued by the Minister for Education on restricting the use of smartphones in schools. The policy, Keeping Childhood Smartphone Free, provides a guide for parents and parents' associations who wish to engage with their school community regarding internet safety and access to smartphones for primary school children. It includes additional supports for parents and teachers around supporting children online.

The suite of regulation I discussed also helps address the negative effects of social media access by making that online world safer and enabling our children to get the benefits of the connectivity the Internet brings, while reducing the risk of those negative effects. As well as this, a plethora of mental health and healthy lifestyle initiatives are designed to encourage children, in a positive way, to balance their online and offline lives, to be mindful of the negative effects of too much screen time, and to take joy in the outdoors as much as they do in their online experiences.

I note the further call to enforce the digital age of consent to ensure that no one aged under 16 is permitted to open a social media account. The age of digital consent is set at 16 years in Ireland, as provided for under the Data Protection Act 2018. It means that it is illegal for any company or corporate body to process the personal data of someone under the age of 16, "for the purposes of direct marketing, profiling or micro-targeting." This is a data protection issue and ultimately a policy issue within the remit of the Minister for Justice. I appreciate the reason for this call, namely, to ensure that younger children do not access social media. However, I am advised that the digital age of consent is a data protection matter that is primarily about prohibiting companies from using children's data to target them with advertising and is not directly relevant to a child's access to or use of social media accounts.

The reality of children accessing online services, which are not appropriate for them, is a serious matter and one that is a concern to all parents. This is why the draft online safety code published by Coimisiún na Meán includes obligations around age verification. In addition, work is ongoing through an EU taskforce on age verification to foster co-operation with national authorities of member states with expertise in the field to identify best practices and standards in age verification. Coimisiún na Meán is a member of this task force. More broadly, the concrete steps being taken through the overall online safety framework of the Online Safety and Media Regulation, OSMR, Act and the Digital Services Act will ensure that platforms come up to the mark regarding their recommender systems, their algorithms, and the measures they take to protect children online.

As I stated, we will not oppose this motion. It raises a number of important issues. From my perspective as Minister for media, the motion reiterates the importance of the development of the first online safety code by Coimisiún na Meán and ultimately the issue of primary concern, which is enhancing the safeguards and protecting our children in the online world. However, there are difficulties with the calls on the Government in respect of smartphone ownership and the digital age of consent. As I noted, the measures proposed may not achieve the desired outcomes. In this regard, the focus would be better placed on the existing approaches to content regulation as set out in the OSMR Act and the EU's Digital Services Act, and the implementation of the wide suite of initiatives that the Government is pursuing to better protect children online.

Mar a dúirt mé, ní chuirim i gcoinne thairiscint an lae inniu. Gabhaim buíochas leis na Seanadóirí as an tairiscint seo a dhéanamh agus táim ag tnúth le cloisteáil ó na Comhaltaí eile.

Senator Shane Cassells

I very much welcome the debate and the opportunity to discuss this very important issue. I thank my colleagues for tabling the motion. It is very poignant. I welcome the intervention by the Tánaiste, who used his platform to discuss this and described it as a public health issue. That is exactly what it is. I particularly acknowledge the work of the Minister in dealing with this issue. It was not being dealt with heretofore. There were no mechanisms by which we could address the very serious issues that are being discussed. By virtue of the fact of the establishment of the commission and the commissioner, we have the tools at our disposal to try to tackle the fallout from what is being discussed.

We spent many hours on the legislation both on Committee Stage and in the Chamber. The Bill was not guillotined. The Minister came to the House to discuss at length every single amendment and every single aspect of the Bill, to make sure she had legislation that was robust and set out to address the very serious issue of online media firms that have such control in our society and around the world. What was interesting during those debates, and the Minister alluded to it in several parts of her speech, was the extent to which we can or want to control. As the Minister well knows, at committee we heard from several representatives of young people, who came to us and said, "Do not speak down to us. Listen to our voices. Listen to how we use our mobile phones and the apps on them to actually communicate." While many of us might walk into a café or restaurant and see smartphones as reprehensible to the way we communicate in meeting one another, for many that is the manner in which they communicate. We should not scorn people for that. We should be understanding.

Equally, and here was the contradiction, those same young people then asked us to protect them from cyberbullying. On the one hand, they asked us not to curtail the manner in which they expressed themselves but, at the same time, the vulnerabilities of being online were laid bare. Young people are as exposed, and more so, than anyone. I took part in a debate on the issue of a ban last week. Before I did, my 14-year-old daughter said to me not to dare call for such a thing, and she is a responsible young teenager. Those are the voices we need to listen to as well.

On the motion before us and its call on the Government to acknowledge in policies and future allocations the harms from smartphone use, and to include action by policymakers and legislators, we acknowledge this is about a whole-of-government approach. It primarily involves the role of the media Minister and the massive steps she has taken already. We have also seen the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, engage with social media companies. Unfortunately, as we and the Minister have learned, these guys sometimes think they are too big to deal with. We had a scenario where X and Snapchat did not bother even turning up to that meeting at the Department of Education with the Minister. Just because these companies are based here, are employing large numbers of people and paying significant amounts of tax, they should not get a free pass in respect of the controls they should be subjected to.

In that respect, a person I have met several times, Dr. Richard Hogan, who is an expert in this field, and I again acknowledge his work, has spoken extensively on the whole area of age verification. As a family psychotherapist, he is dealing with the fallout from the exposure of young people to extreme, grotesque pornography, the harms of products that are targeted at them, and the psychological damage to these young formative minds as a result.

The formation of the online media safety code is extremely important. The very robust fines of up to €20 million that are being spoken of are also very important to show the seriousness of both the Government and the commissioner in respect of this. While the Minister also talked about the importance of these companies continuing to engage with the committees of this House and with the Minister herself, as I said, often, some of them have just chosen not to. They have sought to come before a committee, but only do so in private. Representatives from X would only appear before our committee online. I do not, therefore, have a lot of time for many of these larger companies that have sometimes shown a level of disdain for the Oireachtas and the work we do.

In respect of the bans and the cost of that, I support what the Minister said in terms of the difficulties in trying to ban something. I have given my own personal experience. I acknowledge that. However, we have to be forceful as well in the whole area of age verification. Ultimately, what these companies want is access to young people's minds because it is about product placement and making sure they abuse them from the point of view of targeting where the revenue needs to go in terms of money for the large companies that sponsor them. This is all about money and nothing else. In that regard, we heard from the Irish Heart Foundation and others who have appeared before us that these large companies only want access to young people's minds and, ultimately, their wallets and those of their parents. Again, I pay tribute the Minister for all the work she has done in this area.

Senator Róisín Garvey

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach. I commend her on all the work she has done to date on this. I commend the Fine Gael party on bringing forward this motion. It is a very serious matter of mental health and social health.

The phone has taken over many people's lives. Many parents are not even sure how to manoeuvre them and control what appears on the phone, not to mention what appears on their children's phone. That is probably one of the biggest issues in some ways because giving a smartphone as a confirmation present is common all over Ireland now. The parents do not know how to set up firewalls and even when they think they have set them up, they are not sufficient. I know of many instances of parents thinking they have done everything they could possibly do and then all of a sudden, their child has been exposed to something the parents were sure they had blocked the child from accessing. Therefore, we have a huge issue with mobile phones. Teenagers themselves, although they love their phones, would love safe spaces where they do not have to use them.

It is really important that the Minister for Education said there should not be phone use in primary schools. I do, however, feel really worried about secondary school phone use. Many students still have them on their person in classrooms and some schools even let them use the phone to take photographs or use Microsoft Teams. I know of other schools that have a box at the top of the classroom into which phones have to go so people do not have them on their person when they are in the classroom. They still have access to them outside of the classroom. However, what we see is that some schools have tablets they can use for Microsoft teams, but not all schools have tablets. It is such a huge concern.

I call on the Minister for Education to put a circular out to secondary schools stating there should no longer be any use of phones as a learning tool in the classroom. We all know that once people have the phone in their hand, the temptation is too strong to only use it for classroom work. Once the phone is on their person, they cannot resist scrolling or looking for other things besides the classroom work. It is a big distraction in the classroom. We really need to move away from allowing any phones. If it needs to be that the Minister has to buy a tablet for every student in the country, it would still be much cheaper than the amount of money we are spending on mental health issues for young people in Ireland.

I will quote a few statistics from a recent report, which states that: "93% of eight- to 12-year-olds [now] own a personal smart ...[phone]." The ownership age seems to get younger and younger every year; "84% of them have their own social media ... or instant messaging account." The top four are YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok and Snapchat; "33% of children gamed with strangers online." Children between the ages of eight and 12 are gaming online with strangers, while "26% have seen or experienced something online in the last year that 'bothered' them [in one way or another]. 31% of them kept it to themselves." We have this huge cohort of children going around feeling guilty because of something they have been exposed to on a phone. The report states, "100% of 12-16-year-olds own a ... [phone]" and "40% have experienced bullying online." Nearly half of children have experienced bullying because of this device. That kind of bullying is so intangible. Teachers might pick up bullying in the classroom or playground, but that is an unseen and intangible form of bullying that is much more worrying than anything that teachers might pick up on. The report continues, "43% of girls have been bullied compared to 30% of boys and 74% identifying as non-binary. 46% of boys, 28% of girls and 64% identifying as non-binary kept it to themselves [when they experienced bullying on the phone]"; "26% have seen or experienced something online that 'bothered' them. 40% did not tell anyone ... [else]." We see that the older they get, the more they hide, and "40% reported that they post videos of themselves online, 83% of which used TikTok to do so."

Of the teachers, then, "74% of teachers told us that online safety was a significant issue in their school." It is not just the teachers. I had the Irish guidance counsellors association in here and we brought up the issue of phone use in secondary schools when we had a meeting with the Minister, Deputy Foley. The guidance counsellors have students coming to them every day with issues around being bullied because of the phone and being on the phone while they are in the classroom. To continue, "45% of teachers feel they don't have sufficient knowledge/skills to effectively deliver online safety educational messages." We have much work to do on this. If we do not have the education piece in schools, which is where young people spend most of their time, we are fighting a losing battle. No matter what other legislation we bring in, we have to up our game with regard to protecting children in the place they spend most time, which is in secondary schools.

Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory report states, "... there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents." It goes on to state that, "Despite this widespread use among children and adolescents, robust independent safety analyses on the impact of social media on youth have not yet been conducted." We have much work to do.

The work the Minister has done to date, and it is the first time it has ever been handled properly by any Minister, is really important. The Online Safety and Media Regulation Act the Minister enacted in 2022 will have a huge effect. I am looking forward to the publication of a revised draft in the coming weeks, with the intent being to adopt a final code later this year. The sooner, the better in that instance. The draft code will set out how platforms must operate effective risk mitigation measures with regard to profit-profiling algorithms and age-appropriate recommendations. I know from speaking with social care workers who do work around parenting courses on phones that the majority of parents are not coming to the courses. We have to educate the young people themselves on the dangers of phones. We have to take the phones away from them. We have to stop this complete free-for-all phone use in classrooms all over Ireland. Teenagers want that. They want that rule and for it to be adhered to. They feel safer if nobody has it. We have much work to do. I commend the Minister on the work she is doing. I commend this Private Members' business. We have a lot more work to do. We could spend all day in the Seanad discussing this huge issue. The single most important issue at the moment is probably mobile phone use among our young people. Of course, we should all use our own less as well.

Senator Marie Sherlock

I welcome the Minister. I sincerely thank Fine Gael and Senator Seery Kearney for using their Private Members' time to discuss this really serious public health issue this evening. I compliment what is a very detailed motion. Of course, social media has a lot of positives and we all use it. However, we are also talking about a device and social media platforms that are addictive by design. The recommender systems and algorithms that are part and parcel of the social media platforms most of us here use on a daily basis are designed to grow addictive behaviour. Senator Seery Kearney already quoted some of the frightening research that is out there from the US Surgeon General and others.

The critical thing is that we have not had information sharing or research sharing from the platforms themselves. We have had to rely on others. I was struck by some research by one of Oxford's lead researchers on social media and its effects on mental health, Professor Andrew Przybylski, who said, “People talk about Instagram like it's a drug. But we can't study the active ingredient.” We have, therefore, had to rely on leaked internal reports in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and, indeed, other media outlets to gain some sort of an insight as to what the social platforms themselves understand as to the impacts.

In one study of teens in the US and UK, Facebook found that more than 40% of Instagram users reported feeling unattractive and said that feeling began on the app. An internal Meta study in 2020 showed that 500,000 Instagram accounts a day were involved in inappropriate interactions with children. Despite this, we are not seeing any action taken by these social media platforms. We will hear a lot of lip service but the "Prime Time Investigates" programme regarding TikTok and a great deal of other journalistic and academic reporting on the issue demonstrates that we are seeing very little action. The key issue is that companies are effectively prioritising profit over public safety. We can all agree on that.

We are all agreed on many of the solutions set out here this evening with regard to mental health supports, digital literacy and all of that. However, there is a key question with regard to two of the recommendations. The Minister has already referred to this. I refer to the ban on the purchase of smartphones for those under the age of 13. The key question is how that would work in practice. There is an issue as to how we place expectations on families and parents to police social media use. To my mind, that is a deflection when the spotlight and responsibility should be put on the social media platforms themselves. In some ways, it is quite a libertarian view to expect private individuals to regulate themselves rather than putting it up to social media platforms to desist from their recommender systems, to publish their internal research and ultimately to make the online world a much safer place. They have the power. I am very circumspect about the proposal to ban the purchase of phones for the under-13s. I have three small kids and would love for that proposal to work in practice but I know from talking to many parents that they have many reasons for wanting to buy phones for their children. Those may relate to safety when walking home in the evening or some other issue.

We also need to be realistic and understand that it is not only on smartphones that kids can access harmful online content. They can also do so on the laptop at home. They might be making some legitimate use of the laptop but then veer into something else.

The other key issue has regard to raising the digital age of consent. I very much support that and would love for it to be possible but we are not seeing it policed. I hear what the Minister is saying with regard to the code of conduct. I very much welcome the code of conduct coming into effect sooner rather than later but I have serious concerns about that code. Just how much power have we given Coimisiún na Meán in the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022? When amendments on the recommender systems explicitly hardwiring into the legislation an ability on the part of Coimisiún na Meán to set down very clear rules and regulations on those systems were put down on Committee Stage last year, those amendments were not accepted. I have a concern about the teeth and effectiveness of Coimisiún na Meán when it is fully up and running. I hope it will be fully resourced and able to do the job we all want to see it do but I am concerned about the legislative backing behind Coimisiún na Meán, whether it goes far enough and whether we are leaving Coimisiún na Meán open to the threat of legal action from the platforms.

An Cathaoirleach

There is almost an hour left in this debate. We have a minimum of seven speakers so, at this juncture, it appears every Member will get in. I would not panic about sharing time just yet. Is é an Seanadóir Carrigy an chéad chainteoir eile.

Senator Micheál Carrigy

I compliment Senator Seery Kearney on her work on the motion and I welcome the Minister. I concur with the comments of Senator Cassells. I worked on the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act. When it started here in the Seanad, we had 27 hours of debate on it. The Minister, Deputy Martin, was here for 26 or 27 hours. There was no guillotine implemented. Every single amendment was debated and discussed and positive changes were made. One of the most significant changes made related to the online safety commissioner. The youth advisory committee was another recommendation that was taken on board. In the Minister's introduction, she referred to Coimisiún na Meán having engaged with the youth advisory group already.

One of the most startling figures from the CyberSafeKids report is that 24% of six-year-olds have smartphones. I am the father of three young boys. My oldest is 12. He got a smartphone a few months ago and, for the last three years, he was the only child in his class who did not have one. He is 12 now so, from nine years of age, everybody in his class had a smartphone and were on Snapchat and all of these other platforms. He gets to use WhatsApp but we have parental controls on it and limit the amount of time he can use it for. Some 28% of parents nationally use parental control. Unbeknownst to ourselves, we are allowing our children into another world that is completely unsafe.

There are advantages to using smart technology. I have done a lot of work with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Autism and we have advocated for the use of assistive technology and what it can do to support kids with speech and language issues. In just the last six months, the Government launched an initiative with AsIAm whereby 500 assistive technology smart devices with apps that can help with speech and language are being given to kids and their families. Training is also being provided for the parents.

That is a positive usage of smart technology but kids are also getting on to the various social media platforms that are out there. As has been said, it is a public health issue. That is the reality of it. We are in the last 11 months of the current Government and, for this Government and the next, this is a serious issue and one of the biggest challenges we face. Children are losing their childhoods. There are kids who are not playing sport or who are not communicating. The standard of English is being reduced within the schools because of high usage of this technology. We need to take action, as Senator Cassells mentioned. We met young kids at the committee and they want us to help them. They recognise the challenges they face but the algorithms used by the companies have made it so addictive that kids use these services from first thing in the morning until the last thing before they go to bed at night. There are kids bringing devices to their bedrooms at night. As a parent, I am fearful. I am grateful that my own son has accepted the rules we have put in place but, unfortunately, not every parent is doing that. We have seen issues of bullying online and cases of suicide. We need to take action.

When we discussed the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, we spoke about the minimum age. The Minister mentioned that the EU is looking at that but we need to take action ourselves. We should not wait to see what the EU is going to do. A significant number of states in America have taken action in the last 12 months, instituting a minimum age of 14 for an account and allowing accounts for those under 16 only with parental consent. We need to put something like that in place. As I said, it is probably the biggest challenge we face. It is about protecting our children's lives at present but also their future. I do not think we should wait. When we introduced the smoking ban, it was a world first. We need to take that step.

I compliment the Minister on the work she has done in this area and the respect she has shown to us in the Chamber and to the issue at all times when engaging in it. We need to take the big step and do it for our children's future. I urge that this happens in the near future.

Acting Chairperson (Senator Diarmuid Wilson)

Before calling the next speaker I welcome the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, and his guests in the Public Gallery. There are very welcome to Leinster House and I hope they enjoy their stay.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I thank the Minister for being here for this very important debate. I thank the Fine Gael Senators for tabling it. The Minister will recall we had a lot of engagement privately, and in the Chamber, about the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, which established what is rapidly becoming perhaps the most important and powerful regulator in the State, given its role in a broad range of media, particularly looking at new technology and what is happening there.

It is very important that while we must ensure everybody's safety in the online space, including on mobile phones and other devices, it is particularly important for children and young people that they are safe when they use new technology and devices. Senator Seery Kearney is quite strong on this issue. Presentations were recently made before the Oireachtas children's committee by X, Meta and TikTok. The Minister is quite familiar with these presentations. I am quite concerned. While some of the companies are making efforts to address questions about online safety, I am not sufficiently convinced they are going far enough.

The Minister will recall that Senator Cassells and I produced a number of rather strongly-worded amendments, which we still feel could have been pushed, that would have placed more pressure on the technology companies. I make a prediction that they may be revisited at some stage. The responsibility we have as legislators is, in the very first instance, to provide for the safety of all of our citizens and particularly for the most vulnerable. That includes children and young people.

Coimisiún na Meán has produced a very good start with where it is going. The Online Safety Commissioner is doing an excellent job. She has certainly hit the ground running. In particular I welcome, and I know the Minister took it on board, the establishment of a youth advisory panel. It is critical that in any decision being made about the use of technology that impacts on young people, young people are involved themselves. In the school system the Irish Second-Level Students' Union should always be involved in any input. I fully support the motion and the initiatives happening here, and particularly the work of CyberSafeKids.

Responsibility lies in a number of different areas. These include the technology companies. At design stage for any of their programmes and in the roll-out of their algorithms, they must ensure they are responsible. If they are not, and that is why we made the case to make individual directors responsible, the buck must stop somewhere. As technology and artificial intelligence turbocharges the opportunities and some of the online harms, we may need to take tougher action against some of the technology companies.

There is also the role of the regulators. Coimisiún na Meán is playing a very positive role. One of the concerns we raised was about resourcing Coimisiún na Meán, particularly in terms of the staff. I am very happy to see the number of staff it has and their quality and calibre.

We as legislators have a responsibility. This is also about informing ourselves much more about what is happening with technology and artificial intelligence. I am long on the record as looking for a special committee, whether of this House or a joint committee, to examine the impact of AI on society, including on mobile devices. It is important to have a snapshot of the opportunities and challenges, looking particularly at how AI is impacting on young people and has the potential to impact further.

There is a big responsibility on all of us as citizens to inform ourselves to a far greater extent. I encourage the Minister to have public information campaigns on issues such as what an algorithm is and how the recommender system works on our phones. This should be a critical part of the formal education system from primary school on, so that children can understand technology and what happens. Even on a much wider basis I would love to hear radio advertisements explaining very simply how social media operates and where somebody needs to go to get further information. I am aware that Coimisiún na Meán and the Online Safety Commissioner will be moving into this and I hope the Minister will support it.

This is a very important area. The Minister has provided real leadership on it. As an Oireachtas we really need to take very seriously the issue of the safety of children and young people online.

Senator Tim Lombard

I commend the motion to the House. It is very important. I am a parent of four children. My twins are seven and the other children are 13 and 14. This is the biggest issue in our household by a country mile. How do we police this space? How do we involve everyone in it? How can we have an appropriate environment so people have an active lifestyle and engage with digital technology if they need to do so?

There is good and bad in the issue itself. In my household, one of our children is dyslexic and the benefits of technology for a child with dyslexia are very much welcomed. The ability of technology to help people read and get the information required is very much there. Slowly but surely as they go through the education system, it makes the lives of those who are dyslexic very easy. It is something we need to promote regarding the benefits of technology. On the other side, there are major drawbacks. Access to mobile phones and how it affects family life is a big issue. The reports and studies we have seen show that 24% of six-year-olds have their own mobile phone devices, or a smartphone to make it even worse. This is a frightening statistic. As a parent I am genuinely worried about this statistic.

We need to help parents. This is about helping the parents along this road. It is now the case that when Holy Communion comes along that children get the mobile phones. Two or three years ago it was confirmation but now when they are in second class, they are all getting a mobile smartphone device. There is peer pressure on the families to get involved in this debate. If the majority of children in second class are getting mobile phones and you are the outlier, it puts exceptional pressure on the family.

We need to do more to help families to deal with the issue of when the mobile phone becomes a part of the routine of life. I fundamentally believe we need to push this out as far as we can. First year or second year of secondary school is probably the appropriate time we need to look at this. We do not need mobile phone ownership in primary schools. This is where we are at present. The majority of children in primary school have a mobile phone. If we had an age in the law, such as 13, it would be a baseline. It would become a standard whereby parents could say they will not break the law for their children and they will not be in this situation. It is about helping the parent in this argument. It is a ferocious argument. It is nothing more than peer pressure, starting with the children and working its way to the parent.

It is not about the actual smartphone any more; it is now about the type of smartphone the parent will potentially get for the child.

We have children in primary school with a smartphone that is worth, let us be honest, a four-figure sum. That is the reality of what is happening. Parents are struggling in this bizarre environment that has appeared in the past four or five years. We are not on about the famous Nokia 3210 from back in the day. It is anything but. We are on about a number of a mobile phone that costs a four-figure sum.

I fundamentally believe the age is important because it helps the parent. It gives the parents the baseline that is required to say he or she will not cross that line and then it will become the norm that a child does not get a phone until he or she is 13. As a parent of four children, I fundamentally believe it is the most important thing that we could possibly do.

In the digital space we live in today, the idea that one's child potentially could be up in the bedroom on a phone seeing images that are inappropriate and engaging with people from God knows where, is frightening. I always look at this from the perspective of asking whether one would leave one's seven or eight-yea- old go down town and not know where he or she was going, who he or she was meeting or what he or she was doing. Would one, however, leave him or her in the bedroom with a phone unattended? That is what is happening in society today. It is a frightening issue that we need to try to engage with. I fundamentally believe parents want help here. They want help from the Government to make sure we can get on the right side of this argument and the right side of the argument for me is the age.

My household struggles all the way through. My lads are tough men. Denis and John, who are seven, cannot get out of bed five days a week because they do not want to go to school. On Saturdays, however, they are allowed technology and they are up at 6 a.m. That is how they operate. We need to find a formula that can help them. To me, age is very important here. It is the key aspect in this entire matter.

The other issue is social media accounts. Social media accounts are there for one reason and one reason only, namely, to make money for the social media companies. We need to make sure that the social media account verification will be 16 or 16 plus because we need to make sure children do not become part of algorithms that could have a huge impact on their social life. The mental strain being put on children because of the amount of content they are seeing is frightening. I see it at home every day of the week. I see the whole idea of the scrolling, the addictive nature of it and how it can have a massive impact on families. We need to put a baseline on this also. The baseline has to be towards the age of 16. It has to be because it gives people the opportunity to breathe. The idea now about one going out in the back garden and playing just does not occur because they fundamentally want to go scrolling or rolling down the phone. That does not help the family environment and I am fundamentally concerned about how society will be in the next decade unless we get to grips with this problems that has emerged in the past few years.

Acting Chairperson (Senator Diarmuid Wilson)

Before I call Senator O'Loughlin, I welcome Ms Mary Pat Kelly to the Visitors Gallery. You are very welcome here. Mary Pat is a guest of Senator Currie.

Senator Fiona O'Loughlin

I thank the Minister for being here and for all the work she has done in this area, both in terms of the recent legislation which was one of the first in Europe, certainly, and in relation to her previous work in the education committee where we dealt a lot both with bullying and the need to revamp the RSE education, part of which issue was, of course, around being able to view pornography, etc., online. This is something that the Minister herself feels strongly about and is willing to help.

There is no doubt about it. In all of the reports and in all of our own personal experience with children, we see they are spending an increasing amount of time on the Internet. When I say on the Internet, it is mainly through the phone. It can be through their parents' phone or their own phone and sometimes on a tablet.

Many of them undoubtedly are exposed to content that is simply not suitable for them to see, such as pornographic material, which can be extremely damaging and traumatising. There are many people, and, indeed, many parents, who are unaware of what lies on the Internet. It can be easy for children to come across very mature content without meaning to and it can be very traumatising for them because it can impact on them for the rest of their lives.

All the research shows us that pornography is now the most prominent sex educator for many young people. That is concerning. The research shows us that 50% of boys have seen porn before the age of 13 and 50% of girls before the age of 15. Shockingly, the research shows that 35% of porn shows non-consensual sexual acts, mainly with men being the predator. What type of lesson is that to our young people?

We have to remind our young people, or reflect on it ourselves, that when children - they are children - are learning about sex through pornography they are seeing on smartphones, that can shape taste and expectations. Of course, porn bodies are not normal. Porn sex is not safe sex. Porn is a performance. It misrepresents pleasure. It is a huge concern, as well as the bullying that goes on. For that reason, I thank the Senators for tabling this motion on this really important area.

No doubt we have a role. Legislators have a role. Teachers and schools have a role but parents play the most important role of all.

Children's devices should have a parental lock. There are safe browsers designed specifically for children but they need to be improved to ensure that it is safer for children to be online. Google runs an extension, called Kiddle, which provides a search engine for children with filtered results to ensure that children do not come across explicit content. While this tool is definitely a step in the right direction, it is not enough. It is severely limited in its results and may not provide enough results, for example, when children need to use smart technology for researching a school project, etc.

It is important that we all communicate and that parents communicate with their children and explain the dangers of the Internet to them from a younger age. It is important that within schools the conversations are had also. Communication is absolutely key but we also need strong solid infrastructure and resources put in place to protect children. That is why the age of digital consent is hugely important.

The work that Webwise, the Lockers resource and CyberSafeKids do is really important. We were all shocked when we saw the results in February of this year that showed that a quarter of six-year-olds have their own smartphone. I am still shocked when I see that figure of 25% of children under six with a smartphone. Anyone under ten or 11 should not have a phone. They certainly should not have a smartphone but when one thinks of a quarter of children, and as 45% of ten-year-olds are allowed use smartphones in their bedrooms, there is nobody monitoring, which is really shocking.

It is important also to call out the example that was shown in Greystones, and, I think, in Navan as well, of the schools that have banned smartphones. Personally, that is something that I would like to see every school carrying out. I was listening to a debate recently on the radio where an organisation that deals with young people said that young people were reluctant to give up their phones but when they knew everybody was handing up their phone, they were happy and they reported afterwards that they had a much better and more positive experience not being near their phones but it was that peer pressure that they were very clearly under.

There are many positives about smartphones but there are a lot of negatives, particularly for the age cohort that we are dealing with. I fully support the recommendations that are made in the motion and appreciate the Minister's presence and support here.

Senator Emer Currie

I thank the Minister for taking the time today to be with us in the Seanad. I also thank my colleague, Senator Seery Kearney, for this excellent motion and her dedication to the protection of children.

I will focus on three points. The first is the ubiquity of smartphones. Smartphones have reached into everyone's life, home and pocket. How do we control something as prevalent as smartphone use? It is hard to take action on anything that overwhelms us, like smartphone use does.

The second point is that it is important to understand the dilemma and mindset for parents when it comes to saying "No" to a smartphone for their children. They are trying to balance two things. They do not want their child to be the odd one out or to be different from their peers, but they also want to keep them safe.

The third point is that it is human nature to avoid something that you do not fully understand, if you have not fully got to grips with it. They might niggle us and worry us but we can put them to the back of our minds when the debate on "Drivetime" or Ciara Kelly's show is over. However, in all honesty, I think today is the day we say we cannot do that any more, that this is difficult to think about but, collectively, we must do it. It is difficult to act on but by acting together, collectively, we can do something about this, because we have to.

The digital age has entirely changed the way our children interact with one another and learn. As has been said, there are many benefits, especially in assistive technology. It can calm a lot of children, regulate behaviour, and we have an explosion of information at our fingertips. However, we must also set out in unfiltered, straight-talking, scene-setting ways, the effects that smartphones have on our kids.

Coimisiún na Meán recently published a report highlighting the harmful impacts of video-sharing platforms. It has been well said today but I will say it again, a quarter of six-year olds in Ireland have their own smartphone and 45% of ten-year olds are allowed unfettered access to devices in their bedroom. Reports from the UK suggest that 97% of children possess a smartphone by the age of 12. Smartphones are linked with cyberbullying, social isolation and anxiety. They have algorithms that effectively promote eating disorders, self-harm, and even suicide among young children. We cannot underestimate the toxicity of these platforms and the detrimental effect they are having, even when we consider their benefits.

I spoke to teachers this week in primary schools about the repercussions they are dealing with. This lands on their desk when kids are bullied outside of school on smartphones, but also by kids in other schools with smartphones. That is the extent to which teachers are having to deal with this on a weekly basis. Some 90% of the bullying that is happening now in primary schools, according to some of the teachers I spoke to, is happening online. Teachers have enough to do and are under enough stress. We are dealing with a shortage of teachers and a growing list of issues to be addressed in SPHE.

France, Finland, the Netherlands and Italy have already banned the use of smartphones in schools. I agree with this motion, but I think we have to go further. The Minister referred to what parents might feel and whether they will agree. Let us consult them on this issue. I have been surprised myself at meetings in public forums when parents say they agree with that. They say it would be difficult, but we are going to do this and we have to do it together. I implore the Minister to be brave about this initiative and if public consultation is needed then we should do it. Much of what children do with phones, with which their parents provide them, can be done with a regular phone. They do not need smartphones in order to do that.

When it comes to the digital age of consent, I think people get frustrated with us when we respond by saying it is a data protection issue. I know the Minister says she is covering it in the online safety code and through the EU, as we should, but while we need to enforce it, we must also have the supports available for younger children who are susceptible. We need a public awareness campaign. This is a public health issue. We do need to set out the effects in an unfiltered way and what we propose to do about it.

On the suggested imposition of stricter regulations on the marketing and accessibility of apps, it is fantastic that the Minister is doing that through the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, but this is like a tap. We can deal with the impact of behaviour but we also need to look at switching off the tap, because if we do not switch off the tap by imposing a ban on ownership and regulations about the age of consent, we are going to deal with a tsunami of mental health issues.

Senator Joe O'Reilly

I suggest, with your permission, Acting Chair, and the permission of the House that I will share time with my distinguished colleague, Senator Cummins.

Acting Chairperson (Senator Diarmuid Wilson)

There is plenty of time. Both Senators can have six minutes each.

Senator Joe O'Reilly

I did not realise there is time for both. I got the impression that there was not enough time. I am sorry. I apologise. That is even better.

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, to the House. She is my good neighbour from home who is, sadly, in exile in Dublin, but we still claim her up there.

Acting Chairperson (Senator Diarmuid Wilson)

Temporarily.

Senator Joe O'Reilly

It is a pleasure to welcome the Minister here and, as others have done, to commend the work she has done in this sphere and her commitment to reform in this area. I congratulate my colleague, Senator Seery Kearney, and her assistant with the motion, Senator Dolan, on the work they did to prepare it. I thank them for it. I am not sufficiently narcissistic to claim that I might even have submitted the amendment or that I would have written it myself. I thank them for that great work. I also thank other colleagues like Senator Cummins who pitched in on this important motion.

Personally, I am clearly in support of the motion. I come at this from two perspectives. I am a parent of three children. They are big children now but I have lived through all of this stuff with the phones and all of the gadgetry. I am also a former teacher. Like all colleagues, I interact with people on a day-to-day basis. These are the factors that inform my contribution.

I support the motion. It is extremely timely, worthy and excellent. I support in particular the proposed ban on smartphone ownership by children below the age of 13. This would support parents and the children themselves. It would be an excellent initiative. It is not always easy to police, administer and legislate but it is a worthy exercise. We do it with cigarettes and drink and we should do it with smartphones.

As legislators, we must take decisive action to protect the well-being of our youth in the digital age. The concerns raised in this motion are very similar to the findings in the recent report I did. As you know, Acting Chair, I have been a long-standing member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I brought forward a report to the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development. I was rapporteur for a report on children and how they are affected by online violence, of which pornography is a subset, and abuse. The report was accepted by the committee of the Council of Europe. Last Friday, I took it to a plenary of the entire assembly where it was unanimously passed. There were 20 contributions from the floor on it. The President of the assembly was in attendance and listened to the debate. The report has gone now to the Committee of Ministers. I hope it will complement domestic actions by Ministers here. I understand it will be communicated by some channels in the EU as well.

I understand it is communicated by some channel to the EU as well. It is going to the committee of ministers of the Council of Europe which is effectively a committee of the foreign ministers of each country, generally represented by the ambassadors. Implicit in it would be that we would join the Lanzarote convention. The Minister might respond on this but it is my understanding that we are already a party to that convention. There is also a Bulgarian convention in this area. I ask the Minister to respond on where we are in terms of international conventions and accepting them.

Given the alarming increase in online danger and digital violence against children, we must prioritise the implementation of comprehensive risk mitigation measures, including age verification. The obvious thing is to ban phones up to the age of 13, but after that age and at all times there should be age verification on devices. This needs to be negotiated with the technology companies and to be enshrined in legislation. The companies need to be made to pay a penalty if they do not do it. As with the gambling sphere, there must to be age verification. It is not beyond the capacity of these people to implement age verification. That is the very first risk mitigation measure that must be adopted. Obviously there is the issue of the age at which children are given access to phones, which is implicit in the motion.

There must be penalties. While we need a consultative process with the technology companies, we also need a punitive system that will disincentivise them. We also need educational support. It must be part of our education system to empower children to recognise things that they should not be involved with and to make informed and good decisions in that regard. That involves proper sex education in schools and education on this whole area. We need an holistic approach. We need to commit to this in terms of penalties. We also need to collect data and ensure co-operation with Interpol and other international bodies in order to police the digital arena and detect the perpetrators of abuse and pornography online.

Our time is limited today but this is an issue to which we should return. I commend the proposers of the motion and am very proud to be a signatory to it.

Acting Chairperson (Senator Diarmuid Wilson)

Thank you, Senator O'Reilly. I acknowledge the fact that you are a long-standing, distinguished member of the Council of Europe and a former leader of the Irish delegation. I know you are highly regarded on that particular body because I have met colleagues from many countries who refer to you when they hear that I am from Ireland. They ask me if I know Senator Joe O'Reilly and I am very proud to say that I do.

Senator Cummins is next.

Senator John Cummins

I welcome the Minister to the House. This is a really important debate. When I was doing some research on this subject and liaising with Senator Seery Kearney on the drafting of the motion, I spoke to Mr. Brian Barron, the principal of Portlaw National School in Waterford. That school and other schools in Waterford have adopted the Gen Free Charter, which essentially says that there will be no smart phones or social media while in primary school and there will be respect for the age rating on video games. He is one of a number of principals and teachers that have been going around the country to give talks to schools that are interested in this grassroots movement. That movement wants us, as legislators, to take a definitive stance on this issue.

This is the public health issue of this generation and I do not say that lightly. Ireland was so strong in leading the way in imposing a ban on smoking indoors and the world has followed, by and large. This country needs to be the leader in this space too because it is so important. I come from an educational background, having taught for 11 years before being elected to this House. In that period, I saw cyberbullying and the distress it was causing students. I saw that fundamental movement skills in children coming into secondary school were reduced because they were not outside, playing on the streets and doing all of those things that young children should be doing in their formative years. This really is a public health issue that we have to grasp. I am loathe to see the State acting as a nanny State and stipulating rules but in this instance it is warranted. The issue of age is so important here. Parents need our assistance. As Senators Lombard and Carrigy said, it is a real challenge in households. Parents are struggling to handle children who are demanding what their friends have so by putting an age floor in place, we will actually help parents. It will also drive a worldwide debate because there is no doubt that social media use and smart phone use is having a detrimental impact on mental health.

At a recent US Senate hearing, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg apologised to the parents of children who died by suicide after being bullied online on social media accounts. He spoke about all of the great things that his company and other companies were doing to try to combat that but in reality, it is not enough. Children are being detrimentally affected by their use of social media. In 2011 Mr. Steve Jobs said he limited how much technology his children used at home. Mr. Bill Gates said that he had placed time limits on the use of screens, banned mobile phones at the dinner table and did not allow his children to have them until they were 14. Mark Zuckerberg does not share pictures of his children on the social media platform that he created. If the people who created this technology and social media are not allowing their own children to interact with devices and social media platforms until they reach a certain age, that says an awful lot.

The statistics that have been cited here are scary. It is estimated that 24% of six year olds have their own smart phone and 45% of ten year olds are allowed to use their smart phones in their bedrooms. Only 28% of parents are using parental controls and only 20% feel that the good aspects of the Internet outweigh the risks. It really is the public health issue of this generation. I urge the Minister and her Government colleagues to work together on a cross-departmental basis to ensure that we protect this generation of children from the risks associated with social media and smart phone use. We have to get in line with what the grassroots movements in this country are doing. They want guidance, help and support from the Government so that they can do what we know is the right thing to do. We have to grasp that nettle.

Acting Chairperson (Senator Diarmuid Wilson)

Before I call on Senator Seery Kearney to wrap up the debate, I welcome members of the Fórsa trade union to the Public Gallery.

They are accompanied by their president, Michael Smyth, who is a proud Monaghan man, and their general secretary, Kevin Callinan. They are all very welcome to Seanad Éireann and Leinster House. I hope they enjoy their visit as guests of the Ceann Comhairle. They are very welcome.

Senator Mary Seery Kearney

I welcome the members of Fórsa. I have gone to bat against Fórsa in the WRC on many an occasion.

I acknowledge the Minister’s remarks and all the work she has done, which clearly is felt across this House.

There was a time when everybody smoked in all of the movies. In fact, they did it to promote them. That was what being cool looked like. Then there were decades where there were warnings that smoking was a public health issue. It was not believed and cases were taken. We then brought in and led the way on no smoking at work, and we then had to legislate for no smoking in cars. Now it would be seen anathema to any child protection that there would be smoking in the face or around children.

Social media and the ownership of smartphones is exactly the same. We are talking about the mental health of whole generations, not just the young generation coming up but adults across our nation. The fact is that there is profit here. There are companies at the heart of all of this. The likes of Google threatened the Australian state when they talked about bringing in laws. These companies are bigger than nation-states and they wield power. We have to legislate in the interests of our people and in the interests of the mental health of our generations coming up.

I wish to acknowledge that I work closely in this area and have done in recent months with three men in particular, namely, Roderick Cowan of Security is Your Business, Aaron O’Grady of Future Horizons, and Paul McCarthy, a cybersecurity expert. The talk much about cognitive security, cognitive resilience and the fact there is behaviour modification going on in the use of smartphones. There is behaviour modification going on in the use of social media and that needs to be arrested and stopped. We need to expose what is going on and the mental health implications of it.

Phones are useful if children have separated parents or if children need to be contactable going home on buses and so on, but they do not need to be smartphones. There are flip phones. If we were to ban smartphones, there would be an immediate pivot in the production of phones towards phones to be sold for minors. It is not a fact that they all must have smartphones. I do not agree with this idea of a competency or a freedom of movement issue. It does not hold up for alcohol or other areas that we legislate for. I do not concur with that.

I agree that we had a little bit of difficulty regarding which Minister would respond to this and who is responsible. We reckoned the Minister, Deputy Martin, happened to be the most appropriate. I agree that the issue cuts across a number of Departments. The Minister’s contribution and response suggests that I need to continue in the ear of the Taoiseach about this. We cannot have digital age falling down between two stools, where Coimisiún na Meán has a whole heap of regulatory powers and the Data Protection Commission is responsible for processing data but is too occupied in other areas to be able take individual complaints of children being targeted, and the fact is that they are microtargeted. There should be mandatory education; it should not be just merely optional. Parents are not time-rich; rather they are time-poor. Therefore, as a consequence, it is up to us to take all of the action on their part.

Sponsorship should not be allowed by any of these companies. We should take the same attitude as we do with gambling in sport and alcohol around sport. It is in their interest to be associated, child-friendly and promoting their own interests. However, the fact is that children have access to porn at very young ages. That was brought up by the young people yesterday. In France, parental controls are the default setting on devices. That is where we need to move to and those are the sort of things we are moving to.

I am not Luddite; I agree with smart technology being available as a resource for school projects, for education and for all of those things. The assistive technology for children with special needs and so on are excellent. However, it is this free-for-all use where we just allow it to happen and say it will be too difficult to legislate for that I do not agree with. There is an onus on us to ensure we are radical, we are leading and we are protecting the public health issue here.

We need longitudinal studies and public health measures. We need to ensure we are implementing measures based on these correlations. The facts show that the prevalence of depression, mental illness and anxiety is up. All of these are correlated to the ownership and prevalence of smartphones, and it is getting worse by the year. It is too late 30 years from now to say, “I wish we had done something.” We should be leading and we should be doing it now.

Question put and agreed to.

Acting Chairperson (Senator Diarmuid Wilson)

When is it proposed to sit again?

Senator Mary Seery Kearney

Tuesday next at 1 p.m.

Cuireadh an Seanad ar athló ar 6.16 p.m. go dtí 1 p.m., Dé Máirt, an 30 Aibreán 2024.

The Seanad adjourned at 6.16 p.m. until 1 p.m. on Tuesday, 30 April 2024.