Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Chathaoirleach. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House and I express my sincere thanks to her for being available to all Members of this House, and not just party members, and for her response when we come to her looking for assistance.

The first thing I want to do today is to thank the principals of the schools who have managed to keep their schools running, albeit remotely. They are managing staff, parents, students and boards of management, all of which is taking place from their own homes. I also want to acknowledge administration staff, porters and various other people like cleaners who are going into schools and maintaining them while students are not there. To my former colleagues in the teachers' unions, it is wonderful that they have sat down and found a way forward with the Minister of State. She is to be congratulated for having managed to do that.

One of the things upon which I wrote to the Minister was the need to start looking at antigen testing in schools. The Austrians, Germans and Italians are doing this and it is being done in Taiwan and China. I cannot for the life of me understand what the blockage is in this country. Luke O’Neill talks every single week about why we are not using antigen testing because it will detect very high rates of virus and will allow people to manage the situation in a much better way. I ask that the Minister of State bring this issue back to her Department and to the Minister to ask if we had antigen testing available to us, could this be a way in which we could have schools open and working in a much better way?

On the voluntary aspect of this issue, I want to compliment both special needs assistants and the teachers who have stepped up to the plate. This brings forward a question on the vaccine issue. To my mind these are now front-line workers and they are putting themselves at risk.We are telling them not to visit other houses, yet we are asking them to engage with parents and families and put themselves at risk. In my view, both the special needs students and the staff engaging with them daily should be moved up the risk categories, be referred to as front-line workers and treated in the same way a nurse or doctor in an emergency department would be treated with respect to Covid-19. I have been told that I should thank the Minister of State for not reopening mainstream schools straight away and that we must have a more co-ordinated move forward. That is a good idea.

A number of parents have spoken to me about speech therapy and occupational therapy and how they come under the remit of the HSE when, in fact, the therapies are dealing with children in schools. Covid-19 has provided us with an opportunity to re-examine how we deal with those two issues and to see if we could get speech therapy and occupational therapy assigned to a pool of schools or something similar. There is a major case to be made for that.

On the issue of vulnerable teachers, apart from the vaccine, early in the pandemic the authority to allow a teacher in a high-risk state to remain at home or to stay outside the school was thrown over to boards of management. It is not good enough to allow that to happen. I do not believe it came from the Minister of State, but from the Department. The boards of management are not in any way qualified to determine whether somebody should or should not be in the school. I ask the Minister of State to have a look at that issue.

I must speak about the leaving certificate and junior certificate examinations. I believe it is folly to plan for an examination this year. We saw what happened with the flip-flopping last year. I realise this is outside the Minister of State's remit, but perhaps she would convey it to the Department. It was a flip-flop whereby the examinations were on, off, on again and eventually off. In that context, we must make a final decision. The leaving certificate is either gone or it is not, and we can find an alternative. I recall that when I was in the teachers' union the members would have hanged me if I said we needed to opt for local assessment. They stood up to the plate in 2020 and did it. I do not see any reason that they would not do it again.

Finally, I am concerned about the panel of teachers we are told is available. I am not so sure there are as many teachers available as we are led to believe. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House today.