Pearse Doherty, Sinn Féin spokesman on Finance, said that in 2022 Norma Foley had met an executive from Yonder, a company manufacturing the mobile phone pouches that are now to be rolled out in Irish schools.
Availing of Dáil privilege, Mr Doherty said Ms Foley had misled the House by denying any such meeting, but he read from a letter to the minister from a Yonder representative, saying they had met at a conference.
The letter reminded the minister that she had been given a phone pouch on the occasion. Mr Doherty also said the Government had misled the people because there was not a “once-off” cost of €9 million, as the Tánaiste had said, but there would be an annual cost of nearly €2 million.
This was because 100,000 pouches would have to be replaced annually. “The Government is not telling the people the full story,” he said, adding that other measures could have been taken to keep phones out of class that would have cost zero.
The Tánaiste responded: “I don’t like your insinuation.”
He reminded Mr Doherty he had been “a long-term advocate for public health in this Dáil and I introduced the smoking ban against many vested interests.”
The phone pouches would be seen in time as a major step forward for the public health of young people, he predicted.
He said he had met former US chief medical officer Dr Anthony Fauci recently, “and he has described social media as the public health threat of our time”. He had made the same point to his own Ard Fheis.
“The impact of children is horrific, and you have been extremely disingenuous in your presentation of the arguments, in your dismissal of that public health dimension,” he told Mr Doherty.
He said the pouches had been welcomed by schools as a “transformative initiative”.
Mr Doherty interrupted: “Your time is up, and more so than just on the clock.”
He then cited the €336,000 Leinster House bike shed – which Mr Martin retorted was demanded by the Opposition. Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik then stood and said she had sought “decent bike parking” for both Government and Opposition members.
Mr Doherty spoke of the €1.4 million on a security hub and said Mr Martin could not be Pontius Pilate “and wash your hands of it”, referring also to “the waste of public money on the National Children’s Hospital as well, a runaway train”.
