Politics

Mobile phone pouches will not be ‘forced’ on any school, Harris says

Taoiseach hits out at ‘hypocrisy’ of Sinn Féin’s position on pouches, after he discovered similar scheme in NI

Taoiseach Simon Harris said it was constitutionally his prerogative as to when to seek a dissolution of the Dáil. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA
Taoiseach Simon Harris said it was constitutionally his prerogative as to when to seek a dissolution of the Dáil. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA
Sarah Burns
Fri Oct 04 2024 - 14:12

Mobile phone pouches will not be “forced” on any school, principal or child and equate to around €20 per student, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said.

Mr Harris has also hit out at the “hypocrisy” of Sinn Féin’s position on the pouches, after he discovered a similar scheme is in place in Northern Ireland, where the Opposition party is in Government.

As part of Budget 2025, €9 million has been allocated for pouches as storage for the mobile phones of secondary school students during school hours.

Sinn Féin has branded the spend as a “grotesque” and an “inexcusable” waste of money in recent days. Mr Harris said the idea was not a mistake and had come from a number of schools who had already rolled out pouches for students.

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“We have over 700 secondary schools in Ireland and over 370,000 children in those schools,” he told reporters in Co Wicklow on Friday.

“When you look at that, this is an investment to each of those children. It is a very small investment of just over 20 quid. That’s what we’re talking about here. Of course, if a school wants it, they can have it, and if a school doesn’t want it, the school doesn’t have to have it, there needs to be a sense of perspective.

“The other thing is, there also needs to be no hypocrisy. Because you can imagine my absolute shock after I received a letter from deputy Mary Lou McDonald yesterday ... She was absolutely outraged about this. So you could imagine, you could have knocked me down with the letter, when I saw only a few hours after receiving it, that the Stormont Executive, which is led by Sinn Féin have funnily enough, purchased with taxpayers’ money pouches for mobile phones in Northern Ireland.”

DUP Education Minister Paul Givan, who is in the joint government with Sinn Féin, Alliance and the UUP at Stormont, announced a similar scheme in Northern Ireland earlier this year.

Separately, the Taoiseach said he would seek a dissolution of the Dáil and call a general election “at the right moment in time” when the work of Government was finished and “in a manner that is collegiate”.

Mr Harris said it was constitutionally his prerogative as to when to seek a dissolution of the Dáil, which was something he took “very seriously”.

“It’s a judgment call that every taoiseach has to exercise,” he said. “But I also want to do things in a respectful manner always, and I’ve been very clear about that.”

Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin said on Thursday night that the act of governing was “much harder work than campaigning”.

When asked whether he believed those comments were aimed at him, Mr Harris said he did not and that there wasn’t a political party in Dáil Éireann who wasn’t currently campaigning in constituencies.

“That’s what you do when you get towards the end of a Government,” he added.

Mr Harris said he was not obligated to provide “an hourly or daily” update on his thought process in relation to the general election and that it would happen “in due course”.

The Taoiseach also said that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe had not instructed for the time process of the supplementary estimates of departments to be altered or accelerated.

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns is a reporter for The Irish Times