Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Does the Minister think that protecting the health of Deputies is 50 times more important than protecting the health of children returning to school, teachers and parents? I ask this question because 50 times more public money is going into ensuring social distancing among Dáil Members than the Minister is putting into ensuring social distancing, funding safety in our schools and minimising the possibility of Covid-19 transmission. In total, €375 million is being allocated per year and we have 1 million students. At present, we are paying approximately €50,000 a week for the Convention Centre to ensure 160 Deputies can physically distance fully in accordance with NPHET guidelines. Of course, the consequence of this much lesser investment in protecting our students and teachers and the parents of those students is that many of the guidelines for the schools include the phrase "where possible", such as references to 1 m distance where possible and not sharing work stations and tables where possible. "Where possible" is not applied to us but it is applied to schoolchildren. Does the Minister not think this is just not good enough and that we are not providing the resources, a sufficient number of teachers or the physical space necessary to ensure that pupils, teachers and parents of pupils, particularly those with underlying conditions, can have some sense of assurance that the return to school will not pose a very serious health risk to them?