Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for those questions. I will answer a couple in the time now but we can feed back some more to her. The Deputy raised questions of what happens with children in centre-based settings when those facilities reopen, both from a public health perspective and a child centre perspective. There were questions around toys, pods etc. Let me be clear about this. I am receiving direct advice from Professor Cormican, who has been offered to us by the Department of Health because of his expertise in infection control and other issues. It is not the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, per se. We had terrific initial conversations with him and that will ultimately lead to written advice that our advisory group will consider. Ultimately, as well as looking at the way other international settings have acted, we will have published guidelines for everyone for the reopening. We are aware that needs to be done in a timely fashion.

The Deputy's last point concerned balancing children's mental well-being with physical safety and Professor Cormican has that in his considerations. I expect that once we get something in draft form, I will bring it to some of the other experts with whom we have been in consultation for them to have a look at it.

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