Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, might like to come in here also. I acknowledge that significant funding is being made available for the hire of school transport and given the necessity for sanitisation and so on. We are very cognisant of the need for all of that to be implemented and to be implemented well in our systems. We have made the provision and it is up and running. It is working well. There has been extraordinary compliance and goodwill by all of our students and our operators.

Specifically on the work that has been done around substitution, I want to acknowledge the enormous co-operation from everyone to make that possible. There has been an extraordinary generosity on behalf of our students, which we want to acknowledge, and by the higher education institutions, which have been facilitating them. There has also been an extraordinary generosity on behalf of teachers who were on career breaks, teachers who were on job-share who can now work additional hours and can work them in a different school from their own school. Reference was made earlier to retired teachers and they can now work unrestricted to the end of this school year. There has been great generosity there. I know the Deputy has an interest in the 22-hour provision for those who have availability after their commitments in schools at second level have been completed. Those people are available as well. The Minister of State might like to come in at this point.