Minister for Finance Jack Chambers came under Opposition pressure over the €9 million budget allocation for phone pouches but staunchly defended it as Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty called the spend “grotesque” and an “inexcusable” waste of money.
But Mr Chambers accused Mr Doherty of playing “populist, shallow, divisive politics when it comes to the mental health of young people”.
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns also raised concern about the issue and said that while there was a need to prioritise children’s mental health, prioritising phone pouches “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, €9 million on a pet project that schools weren’t crying out for”.
The €9 million is set to be used for pouches as storage for the mobile phones of secondary school students during school hours. But there has been widespread criticism of the measure as not a priority for schools which have more pressing demands.
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Mr Doherty raised the issue in the wake of his party leader, Mary Lou McDonald, writing to Taoiseach Simon Harris calling on him to immediately abandon the project, describing it as a “scandalous waste of public money at a time when so many schools are struggling to pay for heating and to keep the lights on”.
Mr Doherty echoed her call and called the allocation the “latest example of your waste of taxpayers’ money” in the wake of the €1.5 billion extra spend on the national children’s hospital, the €336,000 for the Leinster House bike shelter and the €1.4 million spent on Government buildings’ security hut.
Describing the allocation as gross and inexcusable, he said it was particularly so when Fine Gael “have underfunded our schools across the State, with many schools, most of them are struggling to pay electricity costs and heating costs”.
He called on the Minister to “see sense” as “this money has not yet been wasted”.
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The Minister said there was an unprecedented education budget of €11.8 billion and the funding for phone pouches was to support schools “and implement a policy which is about mental health, wellbeing and the dignity of children”.
He told Mr Doherty “you should never play politics when it comes to the mental health of young people, of children in schools across our communities. The investment in children’s welfare, in mental health, in dignity at school, is never a waste of money.”
The Sinn Féin TD retorted: “Are you for real? Seriously, talk to any parent out there who’s got a child with mental health difficulties and show me one of them who says that their priority, instead of getting somebody who will help them, that their priority is getting a magnetic phone pouch that’s going to cost the State €9 million.
“Your Government has underfunded mental health for years. So don’t try to wrap this vanity project up as some way of supporting hard-pressed parents who know that their children are being let down over and over again.”
But the Minister hit out again at Mr Doherty for “populist politics driven by anger” and “a shallow attack on an initiative that will make a difference. This is part of a wider wellbeing and mental health policy in schools.”
He stressed that international research had shown that phone pouches make a difference and smartphone bans in schools have an impact on young people’s mental health. And “an investment in children’s welfare, in mental health and in wellbeing in schools, is not a waste of money”.
Mr Chambers added that there was record funding over the past five years for mental health services with a 43 per cent increase across the country. “So complementing this initiative is an unprecedented investment in our health system, in our support, in the growth of our mental health services.”
Minister for Education Norma Foley later defended the allocation and said schools had different policies but she wanted all schools and “all of our young people to know there are no phone access points”.
The Minister said on RTÉ television that children would have no access to the phone until they left the premises. Unesco had called for a ban on mobile phones in schools. She said in schools students are waiting for the “beep” on their phones even when they are meant to be switched off.
“It takes another 15 minutes for them to re engage after they’ve heard that beep from their phone.”
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