Mr. John Boyle:

We only met the Minister, Deputy Foley, once since the beginning of the school year. We met with her in August. I am calling to meet with the Minister because I am aware that in other sectors, such as food processing and construction, that Roinn an Taoisigh has a high-level group that meets the various stakeholders in those sectors. They also include the trade unions representing the workers. I am aware that Ministers tend to be very busy but some Ministers find the time to go to those high-level meetings. There is such a structure in place for education but we know very little about it. We have our weekly meetings with NPHET, which are welcome. We have monthly or fortnightly stakeholder meetings, which are also welcome. We meet fantastic officials from the Department of Education, who are doing their very best to deal with the issues, but it is timely now, coming up to Christmas, that the Minister would meet us in order that she can hear our concerns directly and bring those back to the Government to make sure that schools stay open safely between Christmas and Easter.