Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. Sinn Féin’s motion is one-page long and sticks to phone pouches and child and adult mental health services, while the Government’s countermotion is significantly longer and goes wider. With that in mind, I will also go wider in my condemnation.

In many ways this debate is about phone pouches but in many other ways it absolutely is not. There is perhaps a world in which a budget allocation of €9 million to provide a phone pouch to every student the length and breadth of Ireland could possibly make sense, but that world is not our reality and does not have some 251,149 students going to school every single day in overcrowded classes of 25 students or more per teacher. The allocation could possibly make sense on that imaginary world. As I noticed the Minister, Deputy Foley, listed achievements in her own constituency of Kerry, as she usually does, I will highlight that, of the 251,149 students nationally going to school in overcrowded classes, the Minister’s constituency accounts for 7,340 students. The allocation would possibly make sense - and it would not have generated such vitriolic anger throughout this Chamber, which the Taoiseach tried to describe as faux outrage today - if it were not presented as a mental health initiative, while at the same time child and adult mental health services were awarded €2.9 million. That stimulates anger. It gets my blood boiling. Not a single week will pass without a distressed parent or guardian calling each of our offices looking for their children to access a basic need, namely, education, as is their entitlement as citizens of this country. We simply do not have enough of the basic services such as autism spectrum disorder classrooms, sufficient access to speech and language therapists for children, follow-on care after autism assessments, or sufficient occupational therapists or educational psychologists. We do not have any therapists on site.

The Minister has announced the allocation of new SNAs. While the budget has undoubtedly allocated for more SNAs, they are still one of the most underpaid and undervalued cohorts. The Minister of State, Deputy Burke, can sigh all he likes. Is he denying that reality? He is welcome to back up his denial with evidence.

It may also be the case that if €9 million was allocated for phone pouches in a country that did not have 176,000 children - one in seven - living in poverty, it would not be such a farcical suggestion and would not stimulate the type of anger we are seeing among the public and in this Chamber. It is not necessarily about the €9 million for the phone pouches but, rather, the absolute absence of vision and awareness.

As my party's spokesperson on education, I engage with classes, school leaders and parents most weeks. There has not been one week when a principal has turned to me and said that what would make his or her life easier is a magnetic phone pouch. This is an insult to the school community. There is not one primary school in this country where you will walk in and see every child with their phone out, looking at social media. That is not the reality, despite the manner in which Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have tried to present it this week. For the best part of two decades, school leaders and parent councils have been operating their own initiatives. They have radical solutions which might blow the Minister of State away, such as a press in which students can place their phones at the start of the day. They have agreements between students and parents about leaving phones at home. Each school is operating a different initiative, and many of them are working.

No one doubts for a second that online social media abuse and bullying is a real and difficult issue which needs to be challenged at all levels of our society, but magnetic phone cases are not going to do that. It is not even a sticking plaster on the issue. School leaders, parents and guardians have been crying out for proper access to mental health supports and for the Government’s own anti-bullying campaigns to be given the appropriate level of financing in order that we can have advocates and more leaders in every school who are able to address these issues as they occur. The hobby-horse the Minister has been peddling when asked what she will do about the fact that there are schools in this country that cannot get teachers to fill staff shortages, where teachers have to run between classes and cannot provide students with an appropriate education, such is the extent of staff shortages, is the phone pouches. When teachers, schools and unions ask for these things, she holds up the phones as some sort of initiative. The issue of overcrowded classrooms has not received even close to the amount of attention the Minister, Deputy Foley, has given to phones. This is a smokescreen to cover very real issues happening in schools every single day.

There are a number of different initiatives the €9 million allocation could have covered. We can all pick out ones close to our hearts. For me, that is DEIS plus. The Minister of State might not be aware what DEIS plus is, given that it did not feature in last week’s budget. DEIS plus is a recognition that poverty does not happen on the same scale for every student across the board. Poverty is not just a word we throw around. The Minister of State can sigh all he likes. Poverty is what a child or his or her parents or guardian are asked to go without. Poverty includes students who show up to school without a warm coat or students who do not have access to a second pair of shoes should they damage their one pair while playing football. The budget last week lacked any vision in terms of addressing those real issues and the €9 million became a lightning rod for all of the other issues the Government is failing to address.

The €9 million will have no effect when it comes to the fact that at some point in the next couple of weeks - it has already happened in some cases - there will be children going home with letters in their schoolbags asking for a voluntary contribution, which is never voluntary, because the Government has not provided enough in increased capitation grants for schools to keep their heating on. Last month, schools contacted me because they did not have enough in their budget to do a deep clean as would be the norm in September. The Government offers €9 million for phone pouches and gets on its high horse, with the Taoiseach claiming it is faux outrage when it is put to him that this is another wasteful squandering of money.

Since the Minister of State is part of a Government that has been asked about its education allocation and has decided to bang its own chest and table an amendment to the motion seeking to refer to all the wonderful things it has done, let me refer to that. Some such revised motions are laughable. I nearly fell off my chair today when I read the last part of the amendment to the motion before us, such was its absolute hilarity. It challenges what it refers to as "baseless accusations of mismanagement and cynical posturing in respect of vital public services". Did the Minister of State read last week’s report by the Comptroller and Auditor General? Was it another example of baseless accusation when the Comptroller and Auditor General referred to the Government’s mismanagement regarding modular homes? When we talk about gross financial overspending on major public transport projects, are we making a baseless accusation? Just today, we heard another example of gross overspending: €2.7 billion is to be spent to introduce a system of contactless public transport payments. London, even with its population, was able to introduce a similar measure, at a cost of €11 million, and was able to accrue €4 million in savings. We are spending €2.7 billion but still do not have a system up and running.

The Government likes to take credit for things it is supposed to do. It is supposed to fund occupational therapy and allocate money for the mental health services; it is not supposed to give more for its own fanciful initiatives. I will not even get into the greyhound fund, which got €19.7 million in the budget although the provision for domestic violence services did not even reach €9 million. Show us your budget and you will show us your values. The Government is taking credit for what it is supposed to do. For every year this Chamber has existed, there has been a budget, but never before have we had the opportunity to achieve so much and distribute money in a way that would ensure not a single problem facing this country would not be addressed.

Today the Taoiseach was issuing his usual soundbites, asking which particular measure my party colleague Cian O’Callaghan would take away. Would the Minister of State like me to name some? He can tell the Taoiseach when he comes back. Over the past three years, over €100 million in energy grants has been given to people in second homes. I would like to take that off the table. When the Minister of State gets a chance, he should send the Taoiseach a memo. I might actually email him about it because he gave us his address today. He should also address the fact that consistent poverty in this country is such that over 180,000 working people still cannot afford the bare essentials. I would like to target some of the payments at them to take them out of poverty.

The Government has made some farcical and ridiculous choices, and once again it has prioritised its own self-interest, having devised a budget that is solely about winning votes, to the detriment of the population of what we call a republic. The budget was sickening. An allocation of €9 million for phone pouches exemplifies a Government and Department that are out of touch. I hope to God that when the Government faces the electorate it is trying to buy off, it will be held to account for it.

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