Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I hear what the Acting Chairman is saying. I welcome the Minister and congratulate her on her appointment. I wish her well because, to be absolutely clear, everybody wants to see the schools reopened on time and for all our students to be able to go to school safely in order to learn. It is absolutely crucial that this happens.

I have concerns, although a few are based around the need for more detail. I welcome the points made about well-being but I want to understand exactly what the well-being programme will look like. A really excellent survey has been done by the Irish Second-Level Students Union, ISSU, of 11,000 people, which is quite significant, and it highlighted, for example, that 24% of respondents have concerns about transitioning back to school in September and over 51% noted concerns relating to academic matters. Of the respondents, 29% had concerns around physical health and there were 662 comments around stress alone. I welcome the note about the 120 guidance counsellors but from where is that figure coming? I suspect that we will probably need more, particularly as this was a key request of the ISSU.

When my kids go to school in Limerick, they do not do so in a normal school building. They have been waiting years for a school building and I asked the Department for an update on that three and a half weeks ago but I have not received a response. It is a significant school in Limerick city. It is a school that has been converted from apartments and there will be no space to operate at all. To be frank, my main concern is not what the Minister has done since entering office but, rather, the significant delays endured by parents over the summer months. They did not even know whether to reserve spaces on buses. We just need to understand how this will be done in three weeks and how the 1,000 teachers will be put in place in that time really concerns me.

I emphasise one of the points made by my colleague, Senator Warfield, who stated that last year more than 500 teachers a day were not being replaced by substitute teachers. While the figure of 1,000 teachers sounds impressive, when we put it in that context, we know it will not be enough. Again, I would like a detailed response on that matter. I will not take up any more time as I want to let other colleagues contribute.