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

I understand that the Minister needs to go through with the wide-ranging consultation with students, parents, teachers and other representatives. A number of months of in-school tuition have been lost to that fifth year cohort now going into sixth year. The July plans have already been delayed and NPHET is suggesting the potential, if everything went badly wrong, for a question mark over the reopening of schools in September. I appreciate that the Minister cannot make a definite decision on the floor of the House.

Can we not keep within our decision-making parameters the potential for the exact same scenario to happen in 2022 as happened in 2021? Were the Minister to make an early decision in that regard, it would be greatly appreciated as we would not have to go through six months of campaigning to get to the very same point we reached six months ago.

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