Pearse Doherty demands transparency from Tánaiste over phone pouch costs

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Finance, Pearse Doherty TD, has challenged the Tánaiste to be transparent about the waste of taxpayers’ money on phone pouches for schools.

Teachta Doherty has received Freedom of Information responses revealing a cost of €2m per year is expected for replacement pouches, as well as the fact that Minister Foley was intensely lobbied by the company that makes these pouches.

The responses also show Minister Foley met an executive from the company at a conference two years ago, where she was given one of the pouches.

The €9m scheme to provide schools with pouches to counter mobile phone disruption was the focus of Sinn Fein’s contribution in the final Leaders’ Questions before the election.

The Department of Education has further estimated an additional €1.7m in annual costs for the controversial school phone pouch scheme. The figure is based on an estimated 20% replacement rate for the pouches every year.

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Speaking in the Dáil, Teachta Doherty told the Tánaiste: “The General Election will be called and your government’s waste of the public’s money will be high on the agenda when the campaign kicks-off. A couple of weeks ago, when I questioned you in the Dáil on the phone pouches, you stood there and said, ‘this is a once-off expenditure’. But that isn’t true.

“The documents I received under Freedom of information show it’s not true, and they raise a lot of questions surrounding the story you spun to public. The Government was at pains to stress that this was a one-off spend. Minister Norma Foley even wrote an article where the headline was ‘once-off investment’. And you did that too, Tánaiste, a couple of weeks ago when I questioned you here and you said it was a once-off expenditure.

“Now we know that wasn’t true. Why were we not told there would be an additional €2m cost for phone pouches every year? Tell me why you’ve never told us there would have to be up to 100,000 of these phone pouches replaced and bought every year?

“Tell me, why did you not tell the public that Minister Foley was lobbied by an executive from Yondr, the company who makes these phone pouches? And please explain to me why Minister Foley in a parliamentary answer on the record of this Dáil when I asked did she have any meeting with an executive from any of the pouch companies she said ‘no’?”