Mr. John Boyle:

I am not sure that I agree with what the Senator said about cultural attitudes. I think the mindset over the use of technology to support education in Ireland is wrong. It is very wrong in the primary sector. We really have no tradition of the Department of Education getting the resources required and properly training teachers in the use of ICT. It is amazing what good technological programmes can do to help children with special educational needs outside school, but when it came to the lockdown, those were not really available to them because the Department of Education had not prioritised it. We need more training. As we all know from the statistics from mobile phone companies, they are adept at using ICT. To bring it into the education sphere, it needs to be resourced and there needs to be a determination that there will be a better approach to technology in education. I agree with Mr. Gillespie that everybody wants to be in school for face-to-face learning.