Rónán Mullen: Restrict Social Media Accounts for Under-16s

Welcome to Ministers. Sorry I wasn't here at the beginning, Minister, so if I'm cutting stubbles or going back over ground, you've already covered, you might let me know. Minister, I would just be grateful if you would bring me up to date on your current thinking on the question of young people's access and use of social media. You'll be aware of our own committee's report on online safety. I get the impression that despite developments in different jurisdictions, Australia and France, that there's a degree of push back against the idea that young people should be protected in some way from being exposed to social media under the age of 16. And what I notice is there's a failure to recognise that it hasn't ever been proposed to my knowledge that young people would be denied access to social media, pure and simple, but that rather there would be restrictions on tech companies from opening accounts for young persons under 16. And that seems to be the key issue because it's argued that this would contribute to protecting young people from the kind of predatory approaches taken by such tech companies. Once young people have signed up for accounts, then they can be got at stuff, pushed at them and so on and so forth. So I'd just be grateful to know what your current thinking is on this, and I believe very strongly that there should be a restriction on tech companies opening accounts for young people under 16 on social media. I think the jury is not out on the damage that access to social media has been causing, although there's more that needs to be said and we might get to that in a minute in terms of screen time generally. But would you care to let me know where you're at on this? What way are you leaning at the moment? So thanks very much, Senator. We gave a number of different commitments in this space and one of the things that we said we would do is that we would have a youth forum to gather views of a cross section of between 10 and 17 year olds that would be randomly selected in the support of the Ombudsman for Children and that's taking place next week in the National Concert Hall, so their views will probably shed a bit of light on this. And I know you referred there to the committee's own report as well, and I think that there might have been, no more than there is in natural discourse and normal discourse, there was a variety of different opinions enunciated here and I'm not so certain that there was a clear and unambiguous decision with regard to the landing spot. And I'd say that that's a fair reflection of where Europe is at, to be honest about it. At the last European Council there was a substantial change in some member states where I could sense that this is now the single biggest issue at the European Council of Communications Ministers where this matter is discussed. There certainly is quite a movement towards individual member states in the first instance doing their own thing, but also requiring the European Commission to do more, because the DSA, the Digital Services Act, is the overriding piece of European legislation in which it empowers member states to do certain things, while at the same time not in any way impacting or impairing the single market. So the Commission, I think, at the last Council got a fairly clear reflection from the member states, including from myself, that this is singularly the single biggest issue that the Council must face. I've laid out our priorities as a department for our presidency and really there's just one, as far as I'm concerned, which is the protection of children online. I would prefer to have seen under the Cypriot presidency and I would prefer to have seen under the Danish presidency that we would have moved some way towards consensus at a European level on this. We haven't. There are still a number of countries who don't believe there should be any intervention by any state or by any entity, including the European Union, on the basis of free speech. As a parent, in the first instance, I don't think that that is really where the vast majority of Europeans want to be. But I do think that there needs to be a movement of commonality. So we will have a number of conferences in Dublin and a European Council informal meeting will be held in Limerick during the presidency and it will really be dominated by a single item agenda. I'm sorry to interrupt. You know the way it works here with time. I would encourage, though, and I think it's clear in so many different areas that Europe isn't always able to act quickly and decisively and in complete unity. So I think it's time to get off the fence on this, Minister, and I think you're the man to do it in terms of, you have spoken with some passion on this issue before. I asked this committee to hear from Professor Jonathan Haidt and his group. Now an issue arose that it was a late in the day to do it, but I would be comforted if I heard that the government in your department was having engagement with experts like that, who are probably the foremost experts in the English speaking world in terms of the impact of social media and indeed of screen time generally on young people. And just to that second point, it seems to be the case that early and excessive access of young people to screens is a big problem. And one of the points that has been made is if there were legislation, for example, restricting smartphones in schools, that takes the pressure of teachers. For example, when it comes to insisting on a norm, this is one of those areas where state intervention may very well be justified on protective grounds. And just finally, because I know I'm running out of time, I still think it's a scandal that it is easier for a young person to access pornography online than it is for them to buy a pair of shoes or to gamble or to buy vapes, all of which would require the use of a credit card, which would in turn, as I understand it, prove that you're over 18. And yet young people are still exposed to the most severe dangers of online. Commission the Mian on its own isn't able to deal with this. We need legislation criminalising those who would provide such content online and allow young people under 18, in this case, to access it. And I'd be grateful for your thoughts on that also. Yes, so with regard to age verification, we set it out as a policy priority for us. It's a matter for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform under the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer to build the infrastructure around age verification. My understanding is that that is well advanced. Following that, we have also agreed, which we took to government, that we would initiate a pilot. That pilot will obviously have to be voluntary-led. We'd have to get volunteers to come into it, and we will require parental consent as well to get an indication as to whether or not the existing controls that are within the social media sector are working. I met this morning, for instance, with the Children's Rights Alliance, and I have no issue in the department engaging with anybody on this space. In fact, we will be having a number of conferences in Dublin during the presidency, and I'm open to hearing a wide range of views in this. But I would kind of contradict you to a certain degree, Senator, with regard to Europe is clunky and can't respond. Europe responded very well to COVID, which was the last major public health emergency. It responded in a weekend. So if there is a desire across the European Union that the protection of children online and the protection of their innocence is a priority for Europe... You just mentioned that some countries are taking a laissez-faire approach. That's going to block us unless you act. Unfortunately, Europe is established under the European treaties. We don't operate on the basis of a dictatorship. We do operate on the basis of consensus, and it's about bringing Member States with us as opposed to dictating to them.