Norma Foley’s pouch plan acknowledges that phones cause harm. It may yet see her end up in history books

Norma Foley’s plan to provide mobile phone pouches for schools has been met with derision and a certain amount of hostility. But mostly with indifference. It goes without saying that the kids are not keen on the Minister for Education’s idea and a certain school of parenting holds that this is really the only endorsement the initiative requires.
The schools themselves are, at best, ambivalent. The Teachers’ Union of Ireland believes restrictions on phones are already so widespread in Irish schools that the money earmarked for the project in the budget would be better spent elsewhere. The cost will be €9 million or €20 per student out of an education budget of €11.8 billion.
Many schools would seem to agree, saying they already have policies in places that are working well and don’t involve pouches. Generally, they seem to involve confiscating phones from students found using them.
Some principals are sceptical about a more draconian regime such as the pouches. Students will have to put their phones in the pouches which will be visible on the outside of their locker or similar. Schools that have unilaterally introduced pouches are positive about them.
[ Phone pouches: What school principals, teachers and students are sayingOpens in new window ]
Sinn Féin shot itself in the foot by criticising the pouches as a waste of money, seemingly oblivious to the cross-party support they extended to them in the North. Pearse Doherty, its finance spokesman, called the initiative a “grotesque” and an “inexcusable” waste of money.
The Social Democrats were not keen either. Taoiseach Simon Harris did his man-for-all-seasons act and defended the pouches while indicating that they will not be obligatory.
Foley’s department has yet to give details of how the scheme will work. It may well be watered down. Just another post-budget brouhaha? Maybe not. There is an interesting point that has got lost in all the noise. And it is one that may yet see Foley end up in history books.
If nothing else, the pouch plan amounts to explicit acknowledgment by the Government that mobile phones – and by extensions the social media platforms that they host – are detrimental to the wellbeing of children. There is no shortage of evidence in this regard with two studies widely cited. One is by the University of Chicago which found that students whose phones were less accessible outperformed those who had more access.
The other is by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and suggests that bans on mobile phones are effective in reducing the devices’ distractive impact on students. It also found that about one-third of students found ways to get round the ban – which can be seen as endorsing the pouch approach being proposed by Foley.
[ Sinn Féin ‘border hopping’ on criticism of mobile phone pouches spend, says Norma FoleyOpens in new window ]
Perhaps, more significantly, Foley’s initiative has made implicit that the Government accepts it has a responsibility to address the harm caused by mobile phones and platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat.
The current initiative may be limited to the impact of phones on the ability of schoolchildren to learn, but a precedent is now set for the State to intervene in this area in the wider public interest. The pouch plan really says two things. The first is that the Government sees mobile phones as a problem – in this context at least – and a serious enough problem that it must intervene. The question now is in which other areas where mobile phones may cause harm should it intervene?
One presumes that somebody in the Department of Education was aware of this. Equally they presumably got legal advice that the initiative does not open a Pandora’s box of unforeseen consequences. But that really doesn’t matter as far as the public is concerned. Expectations have been raised. Where things go from here will be interesting but whatever happens will happen slowly if history is any guide.
In January 1965, Senator Warren G Magnuson, chair of the US Senate committee on commerce, introduced legislation requiring cigarette packages to bear the statement: “Warning: Continual Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health.”
Some 32 years later, the tobacco industry finally reached a $368.5 billion (€337 billion) settlement with the majority of American states in respect of the costs incurred by those states in dealing with the medical consequences of their products. A small number of states reached their own settlements.
At a superficial level, the comparison with the tobacco industry seems appropriate. If mobile phones are cigarettes, then social media platforms are nicotine, the addictive substance that makes people use them.
[ School phone pouches: Opposition criticises ‘grotesque’ €9m spendOpens in new window ]
The introduction of warning labels on cigarette packets came 15 years after the first studies linking smoking to lung-cancer. We are probably somewhere in the middle of this period of hiatus when it comes to mobile phones. There is no shortage of evidence of the harm that they do but as yet little political will to address the problem. But that will change as the societal costs increase.
The reasons for the current inertia are not so different from those that allowed the tobacco industry a free ride for so long. People liked cigarettes – many were addicted – and didn’t want the government to take them away. Tobacco companies were important to the US economy and other economies. They had tremendous power plus a leadership that was short on scruples. That sounds familiar.