Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Doherty for raising this important issue. I know Members from all parties in this House have taken an interest in this important matter. There are hundreds of thousands of parents across the country who are concerned about this and want to know the details and how their children will go back to school at the end of the year. There are more than 1 million children and young people who need to get back to school at the end of August because they have lost three or four months of schooling, which is not good for their education, development or socialisation. While one might be able to make up for the four lost months, it would be hard to make up for losing more months beyond that. That is why it is crucial that we get the schools open at the beginning of the academic year at the end of August, as planned. That is the plan. Provided that the virus continues to be suppressed as it is now, that will happen.

Much work is being done by the Minister for Education and Skills, the Department, the teachers' unions, principals and school partners to get everything in place that we need to have in place for the schools to open at the end of August. We want to get all the details right before we share them widely because it would undermine confidence to come out with a set of details and plans today and then change them in a week or ten days. We need people to bear with us a little at least for the next couple of days or couple of weeks while those plans are put in place.

Many other countries across Europe have a higher incidence of the virus than us, for example, Germany, which has dealt with the pandemic well but which as of today and indeed for the past few months has had a higher incidence of the virus than us, and it has been able to reopen its schools. Other countries have suffered much worse than us in the pandemic and never closed their schools fully. It would reflect badly on us as politicians, on the Government and on the education partners if we were unable to open our schools in August when other countries that have suffered much worse than us did not close them fully at all or were able to reopen them in June.

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