Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. His comments included seven questions. My time might be a bit short but I will give it a go.

We are not alone in our ambition to fully open schools. I was on a conference call with ministers from Northern Ireland, France and Denmark yesterday. Their ambition is to fully open schools in the new term. At the end of the day, there will still have to be guidance on how to adapt to the new world of Covid-19. In common with our most senior citizens, young people take social distancing very seriously. They understand it. They are the ones who monitor adults when they stand a bit too close together. There is buy-in there. I am confident that, with the proper instruction, training, advice and guidance for teachers and staff, we will have a new environment in schools. It will be completely different. We will ensure safety through measures like the provision of hand sanitiser outside schools and all the protocols that go with that. The key message I always repeat, and on which my officials are really focusing, is that we have to keep the virus out of schools in the first place. How to do that is the big question. All these measures will be really important.

The Deputy asked for assurance that all schools will open at the end of August or September. That is the plan we are working towards. It is my ambition at this point to ensure that collective engagement with and interaction between the stakeholders, which is now held on a weekly basis, continues to provide us with suitable advice. I do not want to put a timeframe on it, but realistically schools need to be given this advice in July at the latest if they are to prepare.

The Deputy referred to a centralised procurement process for the purchase of sanitisers and whatever cleaning equipment is needed for proper hygiene in schools. There will be a centralised procurement system. The pupil-teacher ratio will be a budgetary decision for whoever ends up in that particular hot seat. I agree that if capital investment is front-loaded, schools must be to the fore. I remember the Labour Party-Fine Gael Government of 2011, when we had all the cutbacks in the world.

One of the areas that was ring-fenced was the capital building programme for schools. That was really important.

The Deputy referred to the question of health advice versus risk assessment. Health advice is paramount because this is about the safety of staff and students, but there also has to be a risk assessment in terms of the loss that is encountered by students by their being out of school potentially for a period of six months. We have to get that balance right.

The Deputy spoke quite passionately about the outdoors and gardens. Something that has been very obvious in the lockdown - my own personal circumstances, as the father of three children, mean I am very aware of it - is that there has been a massive reconnection with nature. Many schools do good work in this area anyway but it has been phenomenal to see people reconnecting with the outdoors. There has been talk about how the world of work is going to be different after this crisis and how our lives in general will be different. Schools will also be different and making the most of the outdoors has to be a permanent feature of that. The Deputy asked about grants for sheds and all sorts of stuff. One never knows, the Deputy might get the call to be Minister for Finance and he will be able to write the cheque himself. We will see what happens if that comes to pass.

Finally, school transport is an area where there have been issues and gaps in provision. There was a change to the criteria in 2010 or 2011 which made it difficult for a lot of rural primary and secondary school students, who now had to go to their closest school if they wished to avail of the scheme. I managed to make a change for the post-primary sector so that the second closest school could be included. We need a complete review of school transport, which is what I called for before Christmas. A review team has been set up and its terms of reference have been created. This is not about rural versus urban but about trying to get the bigger piece together. The Deputy is correct that some parents do not have enough time to get this right and will need an advance warning before their children go back to school.

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