Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It may all be under the umbrella of Covid-19 matters, by a stretch. On the first matter, I will of course speak to the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Foley, regarding the inclusion of representative voices for SNAs. I think we have more than 70,000 SNAs in our system now. Those posts sprung from an initiative I took back in 1998, when I served as Minister for Education and Science, with regard to special needs education. The objective of the Government and of the Minister is to get as full an opening and return to school as possible near the end of August.

That relates to the Deputy's question regarding travel and behaviour. If our number one priority is to reopen schools, and I believe everyone shares that as a priority, we must be extremely vigilant concerning social distancing, etiquette regarding washing of hands etc. and abiding by the public health advice. Any slippage between now and the end of August could undermine our efforts to get schools open fully.

In the context of travel, there has been much commentary concerning the number of American visitors. Our information from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport is that the numbers coming in from the US are quite low. From the outset of the pandemic, travel has never been banned officially or per se. It has never been prohibited. The National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, will be giving us advice. It is meeting today and there will be a meeting of the Government tomorrow in respect of phase 4 of the roadmap. There will also be further discussions about the travel issue, which will culminate in decisions on 20 July about drawing up a green list and strengthening our presence at airports and ports in respect of inward traffic.

I have been speaking to the Chief Medical Officer, CMO. There are concerns regarding increases in the number of Covid-19 cases in the last fortnight. Congregated indoor settings are presenting a problem and having 30 or 40 people in house parties is an issue. We have to be very strong in respect of travel, especially regarding our messaging, with a view to keeping the rate of Covid-19 down. That will be our objective in the coming weeks, with the overarching considerations being to get the schools open and to free our hospital capacity to get the non-Covid strands of medicine opened up. I think I have covered that item for Deputy Fitzpatrick.

Concerning the national children's hospital, that is back now after the Covid-19 disruption. There are ongoing issues between the contractor and the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, NPHDB. The Deputy will have seen my comments on Friday. There are mechanisms in the contract for resolving any contractual issues or any issues pertaining to claims and counterclaims.

Those mechanisms should be used. What is essential is that work continues in respect of building the hospital for the children of this nation. The children of this nation need a modern hospital. We are way behind in terms of getting that completed. From the Government's perspective, working through the board, we want to protect the taxpayer, make sure that the contract is implemented and monitor that in a robust way. Any issues should be resolved through the mechanisms that are provided for within the contract.

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