Mobile phones should be banned in schools given the “incontrovertible” evidence of the damage that is being caused to young people by the devices, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said.
Mr Donnelly said there are “direct causal relationships between increased access to mobile phones and social media, along with increases in suicide ideation, self-harm, anxiety and many other issues that our mental health services have to deal with”.
The Minister said that any ban would be a matter for Minister for Education Norma Foley, but his own view is that there should be a ban on smartphones in schools.
“The evidence we have at this point from the EU, the US surgeon general, from the UK, is incontrovertible,” he said. “These phones used in particular ways are causing so much damage.”
Mr Donnelly said he had met parents of children “whose lives have just been destroyed”. He noted concerns about body dysmorphia content and said there is “huge anxiety” about online bullying. He said psychiatrists had told him that they have seen children who “just aren’t sleeping because they’re on the phone, they can’t get to sleep”.
The Fianna Fáil TD has been supportive of an initiative in Greystones, Co Wicklow, in his constituency, entitled “It Takes a Village”, under which parents agreed to a no-smartphone voluntary code until children start secondary school. He said schools in Waterford have also brought in bans on smartphones.
Mr Donnelly said a voluntary approach would be the easiest way to bring in bans and that a national measure would probably not be needed. “If we could even just facilitate the schools and the parents on a voluntary basis, to just say, this is just better for everybody... We’re now seeing schools beginning to do that.”
His remarks came as he responded to the Mental Health Commission’s publication of nine reports on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) in individual Community Healthcare Organisations (CHOs). The reports showed waiting lists of more than 4,400 patients across the nine areas covered.
The findings have informed a wider report into Camhs, published in July by the inspector of mental health services, which detailed multiple and endemic failings across the service. Mr Donnelly said such reports are very useful and “don’t pull any punches” and that “there is a very significant body of work going on in response to the 49 recommendations”.
He said waiting lists have since fallen to “about 3,900” and the first priority in the response is broadening access to services and the second is reforming the clinical governance of Camhs.
Mr Donnelly said he would make “a very detailed submission” to the online safety commissioner, Niamh Hodnett, on the smartphones issue. He said he is “really encouraged” by her appointment and the Media Commission - a new online watchdog - “could be the game-changer and Ireland could lead Europe on this because obviously we regulate several of the online platforms here”.
The Minister said he does not believe the online platforms “want to cause damage to people and so we need to see them engage”.
“As a parent with children in both primary and secondary school, yes, I see no reason why any child in school needs access to a smartphone,” he said. “We know that they are damaging some children and we know they’re damaging some children quite badly.”
