The executive director of SpunOut.ie, Ireland’s youth information website, has questioned whether parents should have the right to decide whether their children may have access to online social media. While emphasising children’s rights, Ian Power said that some will point to the role of parents and guardians in tempering these rights “with concern for their child’s security”.

“It is true that parents and guardians have a significant role to play: the ideal will always be that children’s rights and parental responsibilities go hand-in-hand. Yet it is no great difficulty to imagine a scenario in which a young person’s rights are directly harmed by an abusive or neglectful parent. In such cases, the ability to access online services in confidence is an incomparable tool for securing help and support,” he said.

The Government has now decided that “digital age of consent” for children to sign up to online services without parental approval should be set at 13, which is at the lowest end of the EU recommendation, which is between 13 and 16 years of age.