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

A lot of extra staff have been hired and a lot of resources have been provided to schools to adapt to Covid by purchasing screens, sanitisers and all of those things. A lot has been done in that regard. The advice we have from NPHET and our public health doctors and scientists is that schools are safe places but no place is 100% safe. Any place in which people are going to interact carries a certain risk. We have to bear in mind, however, the high risk of denying children and young adults their education, the opportunity to meet other young people and the opportunity to develop. We have to bear that in mind in any decisions that we make. The World Health Organization has been strong on that matter too. It strongly argues that the last thing that should be done is to close schools and the first places to be opened are schools because of the wider benefits of that.

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