CHILDREN ATTENDING DEIS schools are more likely to be exposed to harm online than their peers in non-Deis schools. 

According to newly-published research from online safety charity CyberSafeKids, children from disadvantaged areas are more likely to own a smartphone at a younger age and have less rules about online activity. 

The Government-funded Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (Deis) programme provides resources to schools in disadvantaged areas around the country.

The research was conducted between September 2023 and February 2024, and involved 816 children aged 8-12 in 13 Deis schools, and 3,826 students in 45 non-Deis schools.

It found that 53% of eight-year-olds attending Deis schools own a smartphone. For children the same age in non-Deis schools, only 22% had a smartphone. 

Some 46% of children in Deis schools could go online whenever they wanted compared with 31% in non-Deis schools. 

When looking at social media use, some 93% of eight-year-olds in Deis schools have already created a social media account, with 34% having friends and followers that they do not know.

For children in non-Deis schools, these figures were 69% and 19%, respectively. 

Almost a third (29%) of children aged eight to 12 in Deis schools have posted videos of themselves online, in contrast to 16% of their peers who don’t attend a Deis school. 

Speaking on Newstalk’s Pat Kenny Show this morning, CyberSafeKids CEO Alex Cooney said they were not surprised by the findings. 

“We’ve been monitoring this over the last ten years, and we’ve seen that, generally speaking, there are higher levels of access in more disadvantaged communities if you compare to the general population,” Cooney said.

She said that children are growing up in a digital age where society has “established norms that children will have quite high levels of access from a young age”.

“They may have more access in those communities just because there’s lower levels of parental awareness around risks, and I think we need to do a lot more to upskill all parents and make sure that there is awareness about risks that children can be exposed to in these online environments.”

She also called for greater accountability from social media and tech companies “that provide these online environments that children are going into”.

“It’s not about banning children from the online world because there’s lots of good things that they can be doing online, but it is about putting age appropriate access in place, putting accountability, where it needs to be upskilling parents and educating children.”

Speaking to The Journal earlier this year, the Minister for Children Norma Foley said the State would not have a role in implementing any sort of smartphone ban, but she urged parents to consider it for their own homes. 

Last week, the Government confirmed that a tender for schools to have access to lockable phone pouches has been replaced with plans for schools to provide whatever “phone storage solution works best for them”.

The €9 million spend was among the most contentious measures announced in Budget 2025 last October. 

Tánaiste Simon Harris told the Dáil that this was a “pragmatic and sensible way to proceed” and that schools would still be able to seek funding for lockable pouches or an alternative solution later this year.