Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators for their kind comments. It is important to thank schools that are opening up their facilities and to acknowledge they are doing this. There is bit of work and an element of risk involved in doing that and we should thank them for it. I reiterate my request for other schools to seriously consider doing this. As I said, I have written to the Minister for Education and suggested we open up an engagement. We could consider the guidance document and perhaps it could be reviewed and reissued. I am also open to other ways of supporting schools that are not opening up their facilities to do so. There may be potential particularly in the education and training board, ETB, area. Other schools are privately owned so the ETB schools may give us more options. This is certainly an area I am committed to working on and I look forward to receiving a response on it from the Minister, Deputy Foley.