Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I will speak to one particular issue. My party colleagues have spoken about the measures introduced today. We have supported the measures, although we do have reservations.

I will speak in the main on the issue of hand sanitisers. I know the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine is due to make a statement to the House shortly, during this time slot. I appreciate that the schedule could not be changed and that we cannot have a discussion back and forth on the issue. I know the Dáil schedule does not allow for that. Perhaps the Minister of State might suggest to the Minister that a meeting of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine may be necessary next week, if one is not already scheduled.

At 11 o'clock last night, schools were informed of an issue with a hand sanitising product that may have been in use in those schools. Let us take a moment to consider how hard our school communities have been working for the last two months. In fairness to the Government, schools would not have opened if it was not for the package presented at the end of July in order to facilitate the opening of schools but it also would not have happened if it was not for the work of everybody in every school community, from the boards of management down to principals, teachers, special needs assistants, secretaries, caretakers and school wardens. All did their best.

Students, the young people who have been getting such unfair criticism over recent months, have been the ones maintaining goodwill and doing their best to keep schools open. They have been hit with issue after issue with regard to the leaving certificate and there are now issues with contact tracing. There is contradictory advice from the HSE to various schools as to how to handle this situation. They have had to reconfigure school buildings and have had to show goodwill in a system in which goodwill has been in short supply because of the issue of two-tier pay, the lack of basic employee rights for school secretaries and caretakers, the poor management of the redeployment of the special needs assistants, SNAs, and the other issues through which schools have been working over recent months.

It now transpires that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine had information about a defective hand sanitiser being used in schools on Tuesday. Children went to school on Wednesday and Thursday while this knowledge was within the Department. It was not until 11 o'clock last night that school principals were told that they needed to assess whether they could open in the morning. From a Department that has been bouncing from crisis to crisis comes another source of unnecessary anxiety for a system in which anxiety is already heightened. The Department knew on Tuesday that defective hand sanitiser was being used in schools throughout the State and did not pass this information on.

The hand sanitiser that was made available is harmful to children and young people. Some of the repercussions of using it on a prolonged basis are quite serious and include respiratory problems. If the Department knew this on Tuesday and let children go to school on Wednesday and Thursday before deciding to tell people on Thursday evening, does this not again give the sense to the greater public and every school community that the Department of Education and Skills does not know what it is doing? It is firefighting all of the time and is not in a position of control. It is not demonstrating partnership and will just stumble from problem to problem. I appreciate that the Minister will speak to the House but if it transpires that the Department - I am sorry, I am having difficulty concentrating because a conversation is going on to my left.

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