Ms Olga Buckina:

I am 13 years old. I love cycling with Orwell Wheelers, scouts with the Dundrum 20th troop, The Ark's children’s cultural centre and my family, not necessarily in that order. Those are the things that kept me going during the pandemic. I am going to tell the committee about children’s mental health, how we missed normality and structure, the simple things and how we see the future, post pandemic.

For some children, being at home so much meant their mental health went way down. Yet, for others, it went way up. It depended. Some children felt so alone at home that they had to rely on several hours of FaceTime with their friends just to keep themselves sane.

Other children would have felt really lonely in school, even though they were surrounded by other kids. For them, being able to stay at home during the pandemic was freeing. Loneliness probably affected all children to varying degrees. Those who found it hard to be with their families or hated being at home needed to do anything they could to get out of their homes. Some were just stuck, imprisoned. Lots of people said to children that they should not worry. They tried to stop us worrying about getting the virus. Yet, most of us were not worried about ourselves but about other people who would get the virus or be affected by it. We are not small-minded, narcissistic individuals and it is okay for us to be worried, but the Government needs to take care of us and help those people badly affected by the virus.

Every child missed out on something. In fact, there are lists of things children missed out on. These are some examples from our public call out: going shopping; going out without a mask; confirmations; school tours; seeing our friends; being able to see faces; sports days; funerals of someone special; weddings; going on holidays; walking down Grafton Street on Christmas Eve; going to restaurants; and hugs. Some children lost progress in little things and others lost progress in big things. All of us lost progress in something. For one person it was music lessons, for another fractions, but for another child it was progress in learning to walk using a specialised mobility device. For me, I missed the Errigal International Youth Tour, the one international cycling race we get to do every year, and I missed it twice. Some children lost someone close or had a relative who was sick or otherwise harmed by the pandemic. They will never get them back.

Lots of children missed sports, games, races and competitions. We missed out on the teamwork element, the adrenaline and the sheer fun. We certainly missed the chats, the taste of victory or smell of defeat, or even just a friendly match on a Sunday morning. We missed comforting each other at the starting line and finding out everyone was just as nervous as us. We missed going all out and doing our best, seeing the cheering spectators, and talking to friends about strategies on how to win or ranting about losing and how it was not actually your fault. We missed normality and the structure of everyday life; things as simple as helping with the weekly shopping in Lidl, taking the Luas, or waking up at 7 a.m. and getting dressed to go to choir practice before school. We never really got dressed completely during the lockdowns. Sometimes we went to bed too late and slept on in the morning. Days, weeks and months all blurred into one. Going to the Ark to meet with friends and stopping to sit inside for a quick taco before getting the Luas home - that is a perfect day.

What is next? Can we simply pick up where we left off? With fractions it is possible but with things like hypermobility lessons it is harder. Children will have differing reactions. Some will take all opportunities possible. Some will do things they never thought of pre-pandemic. Some will be inspired. Others will be permanently anxious and nervous. Some will have big holes left in their lives and some will never recover. I cannot wait for the future and for the day we can talk about the pandemic as an ancient story, a saga long past, when we have put it behind us. My hope is that I will be one of the ones who learned to make the most of life. I want to tell my grandkids that I survived the pandemic and that is why their 88-year-old grandma goes skydiving.

It will be interesting to see what the world does as a whole. Lots of new technologies will probably emerge. We will perhaps find new solutions to possible diseases and create new, innovative economic safety nets. Maybe the Government can ask us children about what we think before making decisions for and about us. Listen to us. We have learned how fragile the world is. All of a sudden and with little warning, the whole world was literally shut down. Will we ever take the world for granted again? We had better not.