Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Regarding the safe reopening of schools, at the heart of any decision will be the fact that the advice is clear. The advice we get from NPHET, and the advice we have always been getting, has been based on the safety of our citizens. It will be no different for schools. It will have to be safe and no Minister is going to make a decision that would put students or teaching staff in jeopardy. That is not the case. Ambition is important, as is hope. Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to creating hope. We have to hope that we will be in a better position to ensure we have the full reopening of schools.

We are no different from any other country in Europe that shares that ambition. Some countries have done this differently. Sweden has never closed its schools. Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England kept their schools open for the children of front-line workers. France opened on a partial basis, and Deputy Murphy is correct about Denmark also opening on a partial basis, as did the Czech Republic and Greece. We are learning from those partial reopenings, but the ambition of those countries now is to work to a full reopening of schools in September.

It is only right that we have the same line of purpose and ambition for our students, because if we do not get this right, if we do not have all of our children back in schools in September, they will have been out of school for six months. We have seen the gaps regarding regression in respect of special educational needs students. That is only one category, but other students and children have lost out and that has to remain the focus.

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