Ms Paula Donohoe:

I will take that. Information has been confusing and conflicting regarding pods. We first heard about it when it was mooted by the Minister. It remains confusing although we are getting clarity. Going back to the previous question about capacity, when I started phoning the parents of children at my facility, I found an uptake of about 40%. When I phoned each parent personally to reassure them and explained how the new normal would look, our uptake rose to between 60% and 70% of our normal participation over the summer.

Regarding CPD, coming from a rural background, I recognise the challenges with broadband. Some members of my team are of a generation who were not computer savvy, and this became an issue for them. We had also been asking for the release of the quality and regulatory framework, QRF. We thought the 14 weeks of furlough represented a very valuable time when all staff could be trained on QRF. That has yet not to be released to us. We were somewhat disappointed at this missed opportunity.