School Costs
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
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Louis O'Hara (SF), Galway East

We all recognise that digital education has an important role to play but it has to be fair and equitable. The Minister of State mentioned that the Minister has communicated with schools. She wrote a letter to schools about the use of digital devices. That is not good enough because it has not made any meaningful difference. As I said earlier, guidance without enforcement simply has not worked. There needs to be a review of the roll-out of these devices. We need to ensure there is a consistent approach and supports for schools. I do not understand why that has not happened.
Telling schools to avail of the ICT fund is a cop-out because the Government has cut €15 million from ICT grants for schools, with the total down to €35 million. You cannot cut the fund and then tell schools to rely on it to provide these devices. It is completely unfair that the cost is being heaped onto parents. There need to be supports for families who are struggling to pay and an overall review of the roll-out of the devices. The Government should restore the funding for ICT and provide proper support for schools for digital devices so that no child will be disadvantaged because they cannot afford expensive technology. Otherwise, we are going to continue seeing parents being put under pressure and a growing digital divide both between schools and within schools and classrooms, where some children will have a device and some children will not, with those children being made to feel left out.
These are enormous costs. A sum of €1,000 for a device is not affordable to families. The Government should know that. It should be acting on this. You cannot continue to put this burden on families because families are at breaking point when it comes to rising costs right across the board, particularly when children are going back to school. I ask that the Minister for education and the Government as a whole finally get a handle on this and start to treat it seriously.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-17