Is Ireland doing enough to protect our children online?
With the back-to-school countdown well underway and the annual ritual of new schoolbags, name labels and uniform panic in full swing, there’s another conversation that deserves a place on the kitchen table this September — and it’s a lot more uncomfortable than whether your child needs new runners.
How safe is your child online? And are the people who are supposed to protect them actually doing enough?
It’s a question that the 2026 Kennedy Summer School is putting front and centre this month, with a major panel discussion dedicated entirely to children’s online safety. ‘Children, Clicks and Consequences: Online Safety in a Digital Age’ will take place at St Michael’s Theatre in New Ross on Saturday 29th August from 12pm to 1pm — and if you’ve ever found yourself wondering what exactly your child is watching, who they’re talking to, or whether any of it is really being regulated, this is the conversation you’ll want to follow.
The people in the room
The discussion will be moderated by Sinéad McSweeney, former Global Vice President of Public Policy at Twitter and former Managing Director of Twitter’s international headquarters in Dublin. She’s not speaking theoretically here — she spent years working at the very heart of one of the world’s most influential and, at times, most controversial technology platforms.
Joining her will be Dr Niall Muldoon, Ombudsman for Children; Niamh Hodnett, Commissioner of ComReg; Dr Gillian Kennedy, Strategic Partnership Manager at ShoutOut; and Andrew McLindon, Director of Communications at An Garda Síochána. It’s a serious line-up, and the topic warrants every bit of it.
Speaking ahead of the event, Sinéad McSweeney put it plainly: “The question is no longer whether technology is part of childhood — it clearly is — but whether we have the right protections, education, regulation and responsibilities in place to ensure children can benefit from technology without being exposed to unacceptable harm.”
She added: “The return to school brings this into sharp focus. Smartphones, social media, gaming, artificial intelligence and digital learning are now part of the landscape children are navigating, often from a very young age.”
The numbers that stop you in your tracks
If you need a reason to take this seriously, CyberSafeKids’ latest research provides a few. 39% of children aged 8–12 already own their own smartphone, rising to 66% by age 12. Read that again. Two-thirds of 12-year-olds with their own device.
The same research found that 26% of primary school children had encountered online content or unsolicited contact that bothered them — things like violence, sexual material, threats, scams and what the research describes as “dangerous ideas.” For secondary school children, that figure rises to 36%.
It’s a sobering reality. Online safety isn’t a teenage problem that you’ll deal with later. It starts much, much earlier than most parents expect, and it spans everything from tablets and gaming consoles to smart TVs and connected toys.
Ireland’s unique position in all of this
The Kennedy Summer School panel will look at the bigger picture too — the question of where responsibility actually lies. Technology companies, regulators, law enforcement, schools, parents. It’s not a simple answer, and the panel isn’t going to pretend it is.
Ireland is in a particularly interesting position in this debate, being home to the European headquarters of many of the world’s biggest technology companies. That gives us both a proximity to the industry and a real stake in how it’s regulated. The discussion will examine the EU’s Digital Services Act and AI Act and ask whether regulation and enforcement are genuinely keeping pace with how fast things are changing.
As McSweeney put it: “Having worked for many years inside the technology sector, I know how quickly the digital environment can change. Regulation and public policy have to keep pace. Ultimately, this is about children’s rights, their wellbeing and their ability to participate safely in society.”
The ‘Children, Clicks and Consequences’ panel is part of the wider 2026 Kennedy Summer School, running in New Ross from 27th to 29th August. The full programme covers politics, economics, international affairs, media, culture and society. Tickets for Saturday — the day of the online safety discussion — are priced at €40, with Thursday at €25 and Friday at €35. Tickets are available at kennedysummerschool.ie.
It might not be the most cheerful way to round off the summer. But it might be one of the most important.