Schools may be permitted to spend the controversial ‘phone pouch’ cash on other smartphone use strategies, the Taoiseach has told Pat Kenny.

The €9 million spend on school phone pouches announced earlier this week has become a Budget 2025 flash point with opposition parties calling for the plan to be immediately withdrawn.

Sinn Féin has labelled it a “scandalous waste of money,” while Ireland’s association for school principals labelled it “unbelievable”, noting that there are dozens of better ways the money could be used.

On The Pat Kenny Show, Simon Harris said it is not true to say that nobody wanted the pouches – noting that no school will be “forced or compelled” to introduce them.

He said any school that has a better way to use the money to cut out mobile phone use in class will be listened to.

“It's not true to say nobody wanted them and in fact, there's many, many, many school principals and others who've been on the airwaves saying, we've been doing this in our school and it works really well,” he said.

“There's no school in Ireland going to be forced or compelled to take a pouch."

Smartphone pouches

He said the move offered schools a “dedicated fund” to tackle mobile phone use – and those that do not want to purchase phone pouches will still be able to access it.

“I do think it is very important that we provide a degree of discretion and common sense to schools here,” he said.

“If a school has a better idea of how to spend that money in terms of social media or online media or mobile phones, I think we should be open to that conversation.”

'Faux outrage'

Mr Harris also said he was “shocked” to hear Mary Lou McDonald complaining about the spend when her party is rolling out a similar scheme in the North.

“You can imagine my shock when I received a letter from Mary Lou McDonald yesterday against the purchase,” he said.

“She didn't want the poaches bought, it was scandalous, she was more outraged than she'd ever been – and she's very outraged very often.

“You can imagine how shocked I was when, only a couple of hours later, we found out that the Sinn Féin-led administration in Northern Ireland has also provided pouches for phones in schools.

“They spent €250,000 providing pouches for ten schools at a cost of €25,000 per school.”

Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald after speaking at the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown cemetery, Kildare, 23-06-2024. Image: PA Images / Alamy

He said the €9 million should be put in perspective against the Government’s projected total spend of €105.4 billion next year.

“This is about €20 per kid,” he said.

“It's a lot cheaper than it is in Northern Ireland and the faux outrage from Mary Lou McDonald tells you all you need to know about their sort of politics.”

He said mobile phone use is a “real issue” in Ireland’s schools.

“The pouches, a number of principals have said they tried them in their school and they worked,” he said.

“If schools want them now, we’ll provide a bit of money for them, if they don't want them, we won't but let's put this in a little sense of perspective and trying to, in any way, shape or form, equate them to the delivery of major hospitals or anything else, it just doesn't stack up to any reason at all.”

The Taoiseach admitted that some of the Government’s major infrastructure projects have “gone awry” in recent years – and pledged to develop a new Department of infrastructure should he be re-elected as Taoiseach.