17. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach for an update on the implementation of the Dublin city task force report. [3923/26]
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This morning, a powerful piece on "Morning Ireland" about drug-related intimidation described how families are confronted by drug dealers who say that their child owes them a certain amount of money and the family now owes this money and they will terrorise the family until it gives them the money. One woman said that 50% of the time, she feels a knot in her stomach as a result of stress. Another woman said that every time a car comes down into her cul-de-sac at night-time, she thinks: "Are they coming for me?". In another case, these gangsters turned up at a person's door with crowbars and tried to break in when she was there alone. This is a thing that is happening across the city. The report highlighted the work of the Whitechurch addiction support project, which is supported through the Drug Related Intimidation and Violence Engagement, DRIVE, initiative. It has done excellent work supporting 75 families in the past year. However, the kicker came at the end of the report when we heard that the funding for this DRIVE project is now over and this work will end in the next month. It seems incredible that at a time when the Government is promoting this project nationally, funding is being taken away from local projects to assist families in dealing with this intimidation.
Sentiment score: -0.07
28. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach for an overview of his Department’s annual report for 2024. [3924/26]
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The Taoiseach's Government and governments around the world have an important choice to make. The choice is whether the profits of big tech corporations are going to come before the health and safety of our children. For now, these interests are counterposed. We saw it in a stark way in the mass production of child sexual abuse imagery and sexual abuse imagery of women on Grok. There was a protest outside the offices of X at the weekend. I know the Taoiseach previously heralded AI as akin to the industrial revolution or the printing press. This is how it is being used by the big tech corporations. A big question is whether we will follow the original advice from Coimisiún na Meán to turn off the toxic algorithms on social media. They are algorithms made to maximise eyeballs on the screen, to maximise profits, and which push hateful, misogynistic, suicidal material, and eating disorders on young people. Does the Taoiseach agree that we should turn off the toxic algorithms? We will introduce a Bill to do that on Thursday.
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Human capital.
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