Schools have said the €9m set aside for mobile phone pouches in Budget 2025 would have been better spent on the “more significant and biting” problems they face.
The decision to allocate the funding was described as a ‘a scandalous waste of public money’ in the Dáil yesterday.
However, Education Minister Norma Foley has defended her position, describing the pouches’ introduction as a wellbeing initiative that will allow students to take a “mental health break” from their phones during the school day.
International research on smartphones is “incontrovertible”, Ms Foley said, adding: “Students perform better when they take a break from the mobile phone.”
However, teaching unions highlighted what could have been funded with the €9m instead, insisting more pressing needs in education have been avoided as a result.
“It’s somewhat of a distraction from the big issues that should be dealt with,” said Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) general secretary Kieran Christie.
“There are more significant and biting priorities that money could have been spent on.”
Mr Christie acknowledged that €9m is small when looking at the Department of Education’s overall €12bn budget for 2025.
“Nonetheless, schools are cash strapped for materials, heat, and light, for the costs of going to football matches and special education needs provision, a lack of pastoral support,” he said.
This would have been a long, long, long way down the list of priorities.
Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) president David Waters said most schools already have comprehensive mobile phone policies.
“If you had lots of extra money, fine but we’d much rather the €9m be spent on post of responsibilities so that proper pastoral care can be given to students,” he said. “You’ve lots of schools who still think they are in austerity.”
There are more practical, longer-lasting measures that could be taken with the money, he added.
“Schools have such bigger problems,” he said, citing teacher supply issues and recruitment.
The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) pointed to the failure of this budget to further reduce primary school class sizes for a second year in a row.
More than 250,000 primary school students remain in classes of 25 children or more, including more than 7,300 in the minister’s own constituency of Kerry.
Reducing class sizes by two pupils would have alleviated the pressure in many schools across the country.
It is an abject failure on the part of this government that it did not do so,” said INTO general secretary John Boyle.
Every euro in the budget is “scarce” and should be used to maximum effect, he added.
“The €9m spent on phone pouches could have funded 150 new teachers for the 75 most disadvantaged Deis schools, transforming lives through a much-needed Deis+ scheme.”
Alternatively, it could have created 1,000 new assistant principal posts in primary and secondary schools, he added.
Expected to cost up to €30 per unit, the specially designed pouches are expected to seal away phones throughout the school day.
Similar mechanisms have been used recently amongst the audience for Tommy Tiernan, who was the first Irish act to have phone-free gigs on his recent Irish tour.
There was criticism of the €9m plan in the Dáil yesterday, with Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald saying it was a scandalous waste of public money. She said she would be writing to Taoiseach Simon Harris to insist on its “immediate withdrawal”.
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns described it as a “pet project”.
“It’s a lot of money, and it could have done some real good,” said Ms Cairns. “That €9m could have been used to invest in special schools. There isn’t a single special school, for example, in my own constituency in Cork South West.”
