Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)

Our sincere condolences are with the families and friends of the victims of the tragic crash of the London-bound plane from western India this morning, with 240 persons on board.

I also want to extend my condolences to Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh on the passing of her mother this morning.

It is my understanding that the proposal to provide phone pouches to schools across Ireland may not now proceed. Will the Tánaiste confirm if this is the case? If he can, will he clarify the €9 million allocated in the budget in 2025? The issue of the use of phones by students is a topic of wide debate and how young people might be protected from cyberbullying in the classroom setting. I admit it is challenging for school management. At least the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the previous Minister, Deputy Foley, were prepared to tackle this issue and, more importantly, provide resources from the Department's budget to tackle it.

Some were very critical of this scheme at the time. However, we discovered that the government in Northern Ireland implemented the phone pouch scheme despite some opposition. It is clear that every school is different and must be enabled financially to implement its particular strategy on the curtailment of the use of smart phones during class time.

A survey in 2023 of more than 1,000 school students, conducted by Studyclix, reported that 83% of students were worried that they used their phones too much and 38% reported that they used their smartphone for more than four hours per day, with 60% of these using them for more than six hours. I hope the €9 million will be used under a dedicated fund to tackle mobile phone use or overuse in our secondary schools. Some schools may still want to purchase phone pouches. They should still be able to access it. However, if other boards of management have other ideas, or a strategy, then it is important that the Government would allow for a degree of discretion and common sense.

This is a huge issue. Everyone, the boards of management, parents, teachers, principals and students, will work together to come up with a common-sense plan to address this very difficult issue.

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