Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept the difficult position the Department is in but as we go forward communication will be key.

On the question of space, which, to be fair, Mr. Ó Foghlú has answered quite comprehensively, there are two schools in my constituency which come to my mind and which will have difficulties, namely, St. Brigid's girls' national school, which has no assembly hall at all, which in turn will make it very difficult for it to have any sort of expansion space, and a new school I helped support, Clonturk community college, which had been seeking a place on the school building programme long before Covid. I hope Mr. Ó Foghlú will look at both those cases and perhaps come back to me in writing. I do not expect him to have them in front of him.

I wish to address one issue which the Secretary General did not raise. I would like him to put it to bed comprehensively if he can. I refer to the very dangerous suggestion by an Teachta Farrell of Sinn Féin when she dangled the term "liability" in front of the committee. That is really dangerous and I think it will prevent people from taking the common-sense decisions that will help us all return to work. I do not believe there is a liability on the school or teachers if they act responsibly. There is no liability in respect of other infectious diseases and there certainly should not be in the case of Covid. The idea is that we are all in this together, not we are all in this together once we bring our solicitors with us.