Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this issue and the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, for taking it. It is an issue of health and safety relating to one of the most vulnerable groups in our society, namely, children. I raise it following the discussions and dialogue I had with parents and teachers in the aftermath of the storm last February that wreaked so much havoc in different parts of the country. I take this opportunity to compliment all of those working in local authority emergency services and elsewhere who came to people's aid at that time. In the intervening period, we have all had a chance to consider what exactly happened on 12 February.

My specific concern relates to the process of planning for emergencies, particularly in respect of vulnerable cohorts such as children attending school. My understanding is that the national meteorological service would have known 24 hours in advance that Storm Darwin, a full-blown hurricane, was due to hit the west coast. For some reason, however, a decision was either taken or not taken which led to schools opening that morning, thereby putting children, parents and staff at an absolutely inordinate risk. In some cases, at the height of the storm, text messages were being sent out by schools to parents asking them to collect their children. There clearly was no joined-up plan for how vulnerable groups like children would be protected in these types of circumstances.

On 27 May, in response to a question from me, the Minister, Deputy Quinn, pointed to the Department's circular PBU04/04 as providing guidance to schools on this issue. Unfortunately, that circular offers no level of comfort to school managers, teachers or principals, offering little advice other than that schools should provide their details to the local authority. That is not really much good in the situation we saw on 12 February, where debris of every description was flying through the air, third level colleges were sending text messages to their students and staff to say that they were going into lock-down, and staff and principals of schools, particularly primary schools, were left to their own devices to figure out what they should do.

What is required is a single protocol for all schools. One of the first issues to be established is whether schools should open at all when a status red weather warning is issued and, if not, how that message can be communicated in a timely and effective manner. Leaving schools to their own devices in this type of situation is not good enough. There is anecdotal evidence of gates being taken off their piers and sent hurling through the air in the direction of parents collecting their children from school and of trees falling on cars. How much of this was avoidable? Although a man did lose his life while clearing up in the immediate aftermath of the storm, it was very fortunate that nobody died on the day itself. Indeed, based on what we saw unfolding on our television screens, it is a miracle there was not widespread loss of life and injury.

Leaving it to the devices of individual schools, managers, teachers and parents to decide whether or not it is safe to go out on an open road in the height of a hurricane to collect children is simply not good enough. We must have stricter protocols in place and the Department should take the lead in their introduction.

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