Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

One in six people testing positive for Covid-19 over the last month have been children of primary school age. I have raised this issue with the Taoiseach several times during this session. We need infinitely stronger mitigation measures in our schools. Over the weekend the Taoiseach started to talk about antigen testing, as did the Minister for Health. The Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, started talking about it in October. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, stated that antigen testing may be needed in our schools in the summer. That report was released in July. We need antigen testing and we need air filtration devices in our schools. We need them now. We do not need them coming up to Christmas or after Christmas. While we are dithering, Covid-19 is surging through our school population. We need these measures. Can we enforce stronger mitigation measures now? We need antigen testing and air filtration devices so when the CO2 monitors beep we can clean the air as opposed to opening the windows and having our children freeze. We need to clean the air.

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