Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Principals are already at the end of their tether and now it seems responsibility for contact tracing will fall to them and to parents. I urge the Minister to ask the HSE to ensure public health teams have a significant role in contact tracing in our schools. We need school-specific contact tracing. Many school staff are concerned by the details of the antigen testing plan. They are rightly asking what protections, in the context of antigen testing, are in place for them. Given school staff are not part of classroom pods, is there is any possibility of staff receiving antigen tests? There are further concerns about delays between children being identified as pod close contacts and receiving antigen tests in the post. The advice is children should continue to go to school unless they have a positive antigen test. This means children who may have Covid-19 may continue to attend school for days while waiting for antigen tests in the post. What has the Minister done to ensure rapid access to antigen testing? Has she examined the possibility of tests being delivered directly to schools or collected from a HSE location?

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