Mr. Kieran Christie:

I will answer the Deputy's first question on the contradictory advice to different schools. It was a feature earlier in the year and we have been raising it. We feel that the situation is improving. The communication was poor around that question from early September right through to Hallowe'en. That was largely because we were not meeting NPHET officials and they were not hearing our concerns. They are beginning to act on those and they are working harder now on the communication piece, which is very welcome. We are getting more information. We are also getting explanations on how decisions are being made in schools in relation to close contacts. A number of items of information feed into that. Obviously they are the professionals, and we understand that, but there was a level of mystification in the system around the decisions as to who were close contacts in fairly crowded classrooms and this was causing a lot of anxiety. It is not gone but it is dissipating a little bit, in that we are getting better quality information all the time, including updated information around the decision making, which might be helpful. There is certainly still quite an amount of work to be done on that whole area.