Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

We have been listening very closely not just to the stakeholders but to the political discussions and many interesting and relevant issues have come up in the Covid hearings and more generally in the broader political discussions on these issues in the Dáil with the previous Minister. We are very conscious of not putting an additional financial burden on schools for these costs and additional funding will be available to cover the hygiene costs. That could be for the sanitiser. It could also be for some personal protective equipment, PPE, although we hope that PPE will be quite limited in its use, but it will also be for cleaning surfaces. The intention is not that those costs will come out of existing funding for schools. We are also seeking to put in place tendering and drawdown contract arrangements to enable any equipment and so on to be more easily available to schools in order that they do not have to do it for themselves for the autumn reopening.