Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question. The €375 million which, by the time we have finished will be in excess of this and passed the €400 million mark, has been universally acknowledged as a huge endorsement and resource for the education sector. I have visited many schools and this has been the universal opinion of those whom I have met. It far exceeds what many Members of the House had originally sought, imagined or suggested would be made available to education. It is a phenomenal resource. With regard to everything in the roadmap, our schools operate on the basis of the public health guidelines and the best medical advice being made available to us, and not on something we conjured up ourselves. It is on the basis of the best medical health advice available to us. This is how we are proceeding and using the funding we have secured from the Government. With regard to what operates here, it is a matter for the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission and how it operates and what it does. How things are operating in our schools is on the basis of the advice we have received from NPHET and we are following it.