AFTER MONTHS DITHERING LEO PLEADS: BEAR WITH US
Stop hiding and explain school plan, Foley is told
WITH just four weeks to go until schools are set to reopen, there’s ‘a sense of panic’ among parents, the Dáil heard yesterday.
They are at breaking point because they are being kept in the dark, as the Government dithers on what’s in store for their children, it was claimed.
There were frustrated calls for Education Minister Norma Foley to stop hiding in her department and answer TDs’ questions, but Tánaiste Leo Varadkar replied by asking the country to ‘bear with’ the Government.
While more than four months of the Covid crisis have passed, parents still don’t know if all children will be returning to school on a five-day-a-week basis.
Fianna Fáil TD Ms Foley is facing mounting pressure to appear before the Dáil to outline what plans she has about reopening at the end of next month.
While Mr Varadkar has asked the public to ‘bear with us’, there are rising concerns over how schools will be able to open fully, with no advice or guidelines published.
When asked yesterday if the planned reopening of so-called ‘wet’ pubs, on August 10, could possibly jeopardise the start-up date for schools next month, acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said that schools remain the priority.
He told last night’s health briefing: ‘Pubs are one of the highest risk environments, there’s no getting away from that.
‘It’s the reason that we paused last week when we were concerned about the disease. I think we just need to look at where the disease is at in two weeks’ time.’
Catherine Murphy, co-leader of the Social Democrats, told the Dáil there was a ‘sense of panic’ among parents and teachers.
She said: ‘My colleague Deputy [Gary] Gannon, with others, met with Minister Foley last week. The meeting didn’t provide one single piece of reassurance.
‘There was no clarity whatsoever on what’s on offer.
‘I’ve no doubt there is an aspiration to open schools, but an aspiration will not cut the mustard.
We have to see the details.’
Labour leader Alan Kelly said yesterday he was ‘not confident’ schools would reopen, despite commitments from ministers that over a million pupils would return.
He called for Minister Foley to take questions next week. ‘The minister has not in any way answered any questions,’ he told the Dáil.
‘You have to be accountable as a minister. Hiding away in the department doing briefings and then issuing press releases about it is not acceptable.’ He appealed to Mr Varadkar to ensure Minister Foley would appear before the House to take questions.
The Tánaiste said
Ms Foley would be in to answer oral questions, but Mr Kelly called for her to appear and answer questions in relation to the reopening of schools. Teacher unions have also said they are eagerly awaiting the details of the reopening. Both the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) and Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) told the Irish Daily Mail they have been in consultation with the Department of Education regarding the reopening, and that they expect guidance to be given soon. Meanwhile, Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty said that parents, students and school transport operators had been left in the dark. ‘We’re just over four weeks from the traditional date of reopening schools, and as it stands schools don’t know what’s happening,’ he told fellow TDs. ‘Here in the Dáil, we don’t know what’s happening and I suspect that on your side, you don’t know what’s happening either based on the silence from the Minister for Education.
‘By the time you’re talking about publishing your plan we may be just three weeks out from reopening schools. I get that some of this is complex but some of it isn’t.’
Mr Doherty continued: ‘We know that we will need additional teachers, we know that more money will be needed, we know that we need more space, we know that we’ll need increased investment in cleaning and hygiene and other measures. We know that children will need buses to get to and from school and we know that other children with additional needs will need to be catered for in this environment.’
Mr Varadkar told the Dáil that it was ‘essential’ that schools be opened in the new academic year. He added: ‘A lot of work is being done by the Minister for Education, by the department, by the teachers’ unions, by principals and school partners to get everything in place that we need for the schools to open at the end of August.
‘But we want to get all the details right before we share them widely because what would undermine confidence is to come out with a set of details and plans today, and then change them in a week’s time or ten days’ time.
‘We need a little bit of people bearing with us at least for the next couple of days, a couple of weeks, while those plans are put in place.’
Mr Varadkar also said other European countries that had a higher incidence than Ireland had been able to reopen schools.
‘There are other countries that have suffered much worse than us in this pandemic and never closed their schools fully,’ he said. lisa.o’donnell@dailymail.ie
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