Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government acts on science all the time in respect of anything we do with regard to Covid-19. The Minister for Education acted on expert advice. A working group was formed and advice was given to the Minister for Education on schools. There is expert guidance regarding workplaces which was issued in the early stages of the pandemic. Public health officials have been arguing about good ventilation from the get-go. I quoted SAGE to the Deputy earlier. It says that it may be of help but it qualifies it significantly. We issued approximately 35,000 CO2 monitors to schools. In second level schools there is vaccination of students from 12 to 17 years of age. There has been a significant wave of Delta in primary schools. Funding will be made available but there could be different solutions for different schools around ventilation and air quality. Some may be more medium term. The immediate short-term solution is portable HEPA filters or some improvement of that kind. Funding will be made available for that. However, it is not a silver bullet by any means.

The Deputy seems to ignore the advice that public health has given to schools or that the expert working group gave to the Minister in respect of ventilation.

The Minister got expert advice. Different publications come along from time to time. I do not think the evidence about the 400 buildings would stand the test of all public health officials or public health expertise, in terms of narrowing it down to that. Obviously, in nursing homes where people are resident for a number of years, you are unfortunately going to get a high preponderance and we found that out in the earlier part of the pandemic. However, that has been much improved because of vaccination, as opposed to having to lock down and stopping people from visiting and so on. The one game-changer for nursing homes has been vaccination. Let us call a spade a spade.

The Deputy can be shocked all he likes about other aspects. I am open to everything that works. I am for proven means of ventilation. I am also in favour of the principle of doing no harm in respect of whatever we provide or we put in. The resources will be provided where schools feel it is necessary. I was in a school recently which actually had another alternative solution which was working for it. It has not had a single transmission. It was Larkin Community College. I was shown the particular, unique construction of the school and the kind of defences there. The 35,400 CO2 monitors are in 4,000 schools across the country. We will continue to work with the schools. There is also a technical team available to work with schools as well.

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