On 4 September 2024, the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly established an Online Health Taskforce to develop a public health response to harms caused to children and young people by certain types of online activity.

The Taskforce is being chaired by children’s rights advocate Jillian van Turnhout. It has been set up in recognition of a growing body of evidence from Ireland and internationally, showing the link between online activity and physical and mental health harms including anxiety, sleep deprivation, eating disorders, self-harm and suicide ideation.

Prof Brian MacNamee, Director the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics at UCD, has been appointed to the board.

For more information visit https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/4d506-online-health-taskforce/