Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)

The Government has done an awful lot of work on bringing the cost of education down with schemes like free meals and free books. However, another cost that has been placed on parents trying to get their kids back to secondary school is really expensive laptops for each child. Laptops cost from €500 to €700 and even more, and every child who starts secondary school - in the schools I am familiar with - have this cost now. That is a huge expense on families. Yes, we have taken away one burden but the education system has put another burden on top of that. If you have a couple of children in school, and children are children so laptops break, there will be quite an expensive run on laptops every few years.

Will there be research into screen time and using laptops for homework and exams. Everything that is done on laptops for children as young as 12 up to 17 years of age. Has the Department of Education and Youth conducted research? The old pen and paper is disregarded and pupils are now on screens constantly, along with that huge expense.

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