I thank the Deputies for bringing forward this important proposal today. The Green Party welcomes this Bill and the broader discussion about how we can meaningfully protect children and young people online. Rapid changes in IT and the profound impact these are having on all our lives demand that we remain agile and responsive as a State to the need to scrutinise these technologies for the public good. We cannot be passive actors in a world where policy is dictated by tech moguls. Ireland occupies a privileged position in Europe by being host to several major technology firms. With that privilege, however, comes the important responsibility to take a leadership position in making sure these firms respect the rights of individuals. I called previously in this Chamber for Coimisiún na Meán to be given the powers to require all platforms to ensure that their recommender algorithms are turned off by default and for these systems to be prohibited for accounts held by people under the age of 18. This is just one more step we need to take to make the online space safer, but it is an important one. The point Deputy Murphy made about this not being censorship, and that all material will still be available and that all that will change is whom it is recommended to, is a particularly important one. We know from research undertaken in Ireland that recommender algorithms are vehicles for supercharging the most extreme and toxic content available on the Internet. The groundbreaking report from DCU's anti-bullying centre, Recommending Toxicity, found that the algorithms of TikTok and YouTube Shorts promote toxic content to boys and young men. Test accounts in that research were recommended an increasing amount of manosphere content, with the majority of messages promoting misogyny and bogus mental health advice. The findings of this report point to the urgent and concerning issues for parents, teachers, policymakers and society as a whole. In particular, the findings demonstrate that the social media companies are failing to protect children and young people. Women and girls will disproportionately bear the consequences of this failure, but they are also profoundly damaging to the boys and men who consume this content, particularly in relation to their mental well-being. It is clear, therefore, that in an effort to hook users and generate profits from advertising revenue, social media companies have allowed the proliferation of algorithms that cause serious harm to individuals. It is particularly egregious that these algorithms are being used to manipulate the content that children are consuming. In discussing recommender algorithms, it would be remiss of me not to mention another important external impact of these technologies, namely, the energy consumed in running them. I acknowledge the role the IT sector plays in our economy as an important employer here in Ireland, but we have to be honest with people about the trade-offs in terms of there being less capacity for housing connections and eating up the renewable energy capacity rather than allowing it to replace existing fossil fuel sources. It is our responsibility as legislators to balance business needs with the needs of ordinary people to have affordable energy and safe online spaces. We cannot have a no-questions-asked attitude, as was suggested to me by the Minister for Finance last week, either to this or to the potential social harms caused by these recommender systems. We have to be honest with people that there are trade-offs inherent in these policy debates and not pretend that we can have unlimited growth in data while keeping electricity affordable. I am happy, therefore, to support this Bill, but we as a country will need to go further and be proactive in how we deal with the impact that tech is having on our society. My party colleague Senator Malcolm Noonan spoke yesterday about the urgent need for X to appear before the media committee to answer questions about the generation of inappropriate material via Grok. It is deeply worrying that the Taoiseach made so little effort to ensure that this happens. I strongly urge the Government to take the issues of online safety more seriously and not to adopt a laissez-faire attitude to these changes. Business interests must not trump the interests of our young people.

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