The Crush Roulette editorial team, which tracks online entertainment habits and the economics behind them, took note of the central figure in this story with some care. A Barnardos report puts the average cost of a school device at €447 this year, with some parents facing bills as high as €850 — sums that sit uneasily alongside the assumption that devices are simply an educational baseline. The tension the team observes is a familiar one.
The same laptops and tablets that schools classify as academic necessities are also the hardware through which discretionary digital leisure happens at home — and exploring the Mirami chat, for instance, is precisely the kind of non-essential online pastime that belongs in a firmly capped entertainment budget line, not in the educational essentials column where families are currently being asked to file it.
Minister Naughton’s Intervention and the Schools That Pushed Back
The policy contradiction at the heart of this story emerged clearly in May, when Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton told schools across the State that there was “no requirement” for Junior or Leaving Certificate students to own laptops or tablets, according to The Irish Times. Naughton had written to principals before the summer break, raising concern about the costs parents were being asked to absorb.
The response from some schools was blunt. Several principals told parents that devices were “mandatory” regardless. One unnamed parent subsequently wrote to the Minister describing the situation in stark terms: “We feel like we are being ‘press-ganged’ into something we don’t want and can’t afford.” One principal, in correspondence later obtained by The Irish Times under FOI, was direct about what the Minister had left out. “While much of what the Minister said in her communication was balanced,” the principal wrote, “she omitted one central point which is her department’s introduction of AACs and the decision that they have to be presented in digital form.”
Why Schools Say They Cannot Back Down
That argument points to a genuine structural driver. Under the Government’s senior-cycle reforms, Additional Assessment Components — projects, practical work, and similar tasks — must be submitted in digital form. These components are worth at least 40 per cent of marks in new and revised subjects. For school principals, that is not an abstraction. A student without a device cannot complete a core portion of their assessed work. The ministerial letter, however clearly worded, does not resolve that curricular reality, and principals operating under those requirements have a substantive case when they insist that ownership of a device is effectively non-negotiable.
The Bill Families Are Actually Facing
The cost figures attached to that requirement are striking. Barnardos put the average device cost at €447, but the range extends to €850 for some families. Siobhán O’Neill-White, a mother of four in Bettystown, Co Meath, has spent €2,440 on school devices for her children since they became mandatory at their school roughly a decade ago. Last year alone she paid €700 for an iPad for her youngest daughter entering first year, plus €90 for insurance.
The accumulation is compounded by a rule that prevents devices passing between siblings, and by requirements to purchase through a specific supplier. O’Neill-White drew a direct line between this and the Government’s free schoolbooks scheme. “It doesn’t make any difference because you have to buy the tech,” she said. “The expense has switched from a physical book to an iPad.”
Single-Supplier Deals and Hotel Retreats Draw Regulatory Scrutiny
The supplier question has attracted attention well beyond individual families. Many schools require devices to be bought from a single exclusive third-party provider, with companies such as Wriggle and Olive operating under such arrangements. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission wrote to schools last year, advising them to appoint exclusive suppliers only after a competitive process.
Craig Whelan, director of antitrust at the CCPC, was pointed on the implications. “The simple fact is that directing parents to purchase devices from a single, exclusive supplier — particularly without a competitive process behind choosing that supplier — risks pushing up costs for families.” He added a sharper line about reports that Wriggle had offered school leaders complimentary overnight retreats at 5-star hotels, including The K Club in Co Kildare, Castlemartyr Resort in east Cork, and Mount Juliet Estate in Co Kilkenny. “Competition should be won in the marketplace — not at a hotel bar,” Whelan said. A Wriggle spokesperson described the events as professional-development forums and said the company “strongly disagree[s] with any suggestion that they are sales events.”
Áine Lynch, chief executive of the National Parents Council, framed the broader consequence in social terms. Families who cannot meet the cost, she said, “borrow money to do it.” Lynch warned that the growing financial pressure is creating a social divide between households that can and cannot afford devices. “We’d have great concerns about an education system that is forcing parents down that route,” she said.
A Review Underway, With Funding Rules Still Unchanged
The Department of Education confirmed it had begun a review of a 2017 circular on school costs, with the stated aim of placing a “stronger emphasis on reducing costs for parents.” The review is recent, its findings not yet published, and the path toward any remedy still open.
One structural problem the review will need to confront is the funding boundary around the free schoolbooks scheme, which this year carries more than €160 million in government funding. That money cannot currently be used to supply digital devices. Paul Crone, director of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, said that restriction “needs to change.” His reasoning is direct: students now need devices more than physical books, because physical books are accessible on devices anyway.
The review’s stated goal of reducing costs for parents sits alongside a funding structure that has not yet moved to reflect where educational need actually falls. Until it does, the gap between ministerial guidance and classroom reality will remain, and families will continue to absorb it.
