I am glad to get the opportunity to speak. I thank Deputy Boyd-Barrett for bringing this to our attention. We all agree that online safety for our youngsters is of paramount importance. Our youngsters are our future, and we need to protect our future by protecting our youngsters. This is so important. It is hard for young couples rearing children today to get them to crawl and to walk and all the things before them but this is really hard for many parents to understand. Like Deputy Dolan said, we did not have to go through this. We did not have the problems that are being loaded on our young society. I agree we need to bring in laws to deal with these platforms that are just in it to make money and fortunes for themselves on the backs of our children. Connectivity is so important. I believe that youngsters up to 16 years of age should have a mobile phone, maybe something like my own that is of no harm and has no ridiculous content or bad stuff like we know is available at present. We know youngsters are bullied and have been bullied. They have committed suicide as a result. We know this and it is a terrible and awful thing altogether that we have got to know about in recent years. I never understood that such a thing could happen. As Deputy Dolan said, we as parents do not know what is going on in the rooms or behind the doors where children are. We do not know what is going on. More parents need to be educated to understand better. Generally, people out there are outraged with what is happening and the way people are taken over completely by some of these online platforms. While they may know what is going on at the other end of the world, and there is great value and education to be had from these platforms and these iPhones, I am worried that youngsters are online but do not know what is going on around them. They forget to talk to their parents, their siblings and their grandparents. We all benefited from those things and grew up in a normal way, where everyone belonging to us came first rather than some of these things that happen on the other side of the world. Online abuse is another thing that is terrible. I have not suffered from it but I know that other politicians and people have suffered a lot from this anonymous online abuse where people can put up terrible things about their families and create so much distress. It can trigger suicide and other problems and puts people down in a big way. We need to deal with this, whatever the Government comes up with. The Government needs to do this because it is very important. As I said at the start, our children are our future. We need to keep this rubbish away from them until they are at least 16 or 17 years of age. Let them have connectivity with an ordinary phone, or an iPhone if these platforms can be taken off it. We need to leave them have connectivity with their friends and parents in case they need assistance. We need to maintain that, but we have to bring forward a Bill to deal properly with this and we all need to support it.

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