Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I suppose that we will have an inquiry regarding the response to Covid at some stage. I hope it will not turn into a witch-hunt or trying to blame people for making decisions, because it was an extremely difficult time. Everyone recognises that no matter what decisions were made, there were going to be downsides to them. Yet, one of the issues that I would hope that any future inquiry would look at is the impact on children of primary and secondary schools being closed for such a long time. There is also an issue with regard to protecting the health of teachers. I am not asking the Minister for an answer on this. It might be helpful if the Department at some stage gave consideration to providing a response on what it thinks was the impact on children of the closure of schools for such a lengthy period. Doing so would allow us to learn from what happened. I do not know if there is any plan for the Department to do that. What does the Minister think?