{"id":670803,"date":"2026-10-31T11:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T11:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/670803\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T11:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T11:10:09","slug":"schools-wait-for-delivery-of-hundreds-of-laptops-already-paid-for-by-parents-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/670803\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools wait for delivery of hundreds of laptops already paid for by parents \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than half a dozen secondary schools<\/a> are still waiting for the delivery of laptops or other information technology (IT) equipment for their students from Olive for Education, one of the country\u2019s biggest providers of one-to-one laptops and tablets.<\/p>\n

The Irish Times has spoken to two principals whose schools both have more than 200 laptops that are overdue since the start of the school year. They say parents are becoming increasingly angry that the devices for which they paid more than \u20ac650 have not been delivered, despite almost a third of the school year being completed.<\/p>\n

Paul Crone, director of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals <\/a>(NAPD), said his organisation has provided advice to several school principals on their legal rights over the late delivery. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0School principals under \u2018unmanageable burden\u2019 with free books schemeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cNAPD are aware that a number of schools who ordered student devices have not yet received those devices despite the order being placed well in advance of the start of the school year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very concerning situation and it is not acceptable that schools would put their trust in a supplier and be let down so badly. School principals are left managing this situation locally and this is not good enough. <\/p>\n

\u201cSchools will undertake a procurement procedure to appoint a supplier and will commit to work with a supplier in good faith. The responsibility of the supplier is to deliver the devices for students to the schools. NAPD would encourage all school principals to be diligent in the procurement process to ensure their students are not being disadvantaged through no fault of the school.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some schools, students have received their devices from Olive but have not been given the hard plastic cases they paid for to protect them from damage.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Doing business with Olive: The sports star, the fitness guru and the ministerOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

One principal said their school was told by Olive that \u201cglobal supply issues\u201d were to blame for the late delivery of their laptops.<\/p>\n

Another principal said Olive had a stand at last month\u2019s NAPD conference in Galway. When he raised complaints with the Olive staff present about the late delivery of his students\u2019 laptops, he was told he could speak to Olive\u2019s chief executive Brendan Kavanagh when he arrived at the conference. But he said Kavanagh did not attend the conference. <\/p>\n

Several principals said that despite Minister of Education Hildegarde Naughton <\/a>saying parents were not required to buy student devices, stagnant IT budgets and requirements for electronic submission of additional assessment components and classroom-based assessments meant they believed individual devices are required for students to complete coursework. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have enough school computers for all students so these devices are necessary,\u201d said one principal. \u201cWe have had to delay a lot of coursework while we wait for the devices to be delivered by Olive, who had previously been a good supplier.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Nobody wants to see teachers go on strike but preparations are being made, Minister saysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A number of schools had previously dealt with Gary Hoey, Olive\u2019s director of education, but an email to his account last week prompted an automatic response directing inquiries to other members of Olive\u2019s staff. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy role within Olive Group is now focused exclusively on the development of an exciting new educational software offering. I\u2019m looking forward to sharing full details in due course,\u201d the email noted.<\/p>\n

Several queries on the problems that schools are encountering were submitted to Olive\u2019s spokesman on Thursday morning. There was no response other than a legal letter on Friday from Philip Lee solicitors marked \u201cPrivate and Confidential\u201d. <\/p>\n

In July, Olive filed a High Court action against former Olive executives who set up a rival business, Eduvolve. It accused them of \u201ccommercial sabotage\u201d and improperly trying to solicit Olive\u2019s customer schools. Olive complained that it had lost contracts at 20 schools valued at \u20ac1.6 million. The claims were denied by the defendants. The case is up for mention in the High Court on Monday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than half a dozen secondary schools are still waiting for the delivery of laptops or other information…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,284158],"class_list":["post-670803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-olive-for-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}