Ms Áine Lynch:

There are many questions in that group, and I will try to start with the first concerning testing children for the virus. There are no plans that we are aware of whereby children will be tested for the virus in schools, other than what is happening with the normal population when people have symptoms. I am not aware of any other plans in that area.

Moving on to blended learning at primary level, the indications we are getting from parents is that it does not work. It may work better for more independent learners as they get older, but young children are not independent learners yet and the teacher is an important factor in their learning. Blended learning, therefore, is not always about access to devices or broadband. It is more about where the child is at in the context of his or her ability to learn independently. Generally, what we are hearing from parents is that the home school learning happening at the moment is not working in the majority of cases, and it is working less and less as time has gone on.