EDUCATION MINISTER NORMA Foley will meet with teaching unions and other stakeholders next Tuesday ahead of the reopening of schools after the Christmas break.
The government has stressed that schools are set to reopen as planned next week despite a surge in Covid-19 infections that represents the biggest wave since the beginning of the pandemic.
A further 20,110 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed today with 682 people in hospital, up from 619 yesterday.
The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) is due to meet on Thursday 6 January, with manny schools planning on reopening on that date also.
In a statement this afternoon, Foley said she “recognises the huge importance of school for children and young people” and she will be meeting with stakeholders next Tuesday.
All infection prevention and control measures in place in schools are kept under constant review, and the Minister and the Department has continued to engage with public health officials over the Christmas period.
The statement added: “As previously agreed, a meeting with public health will take place next Tuesday between unions, management bodies, the Minister and the Department of Education in advance of school reopening.”
Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One this afternoon, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said “the plan is for schools to reopen”, adding that they are “very controlled environments”.
“All of the information that I’ve been given, all of the advice I have is that whilst of course you can get an infection within school, they are substantially safer for example than children being outside of school,” he said.
Donnelly also referred to other countries experiencing a surge driven by the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and said he was “not aware of any other European country that is considering closing schools”.
This message was also shared by Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tony Holohan who told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland today that he was also not aware of schools remaining closed in other countries.
“At the moment schools are scheduled to reopen next week. We keep an eye on all of these situations in relation to the disease,” he said.
We can see that the age-specific incidence across all the different age groups is rising in many age groups but has been falling since early December in most of the school-going age groups.
Holohan also confirmed that the next NPHET meeting is still planned for next Thursday but that members are still working and have been in contact over the Christmas period.
“We continue to manage the whole situation and we’ve done this right through Christmas, every single day,” he said.
“So we have the next formal meeting of NPHET on Thursday but we have a continuing capacity to monitor and report and take measures if those measures are necessary, as evidence by yesterday’s measures.”
Separately, Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman has responded to concerns about the operation of childcare and early learning services next week.
“The current position is that early learning and childcare services should remain open, or reopen next week, if they have been closed for the Christmas period. My department will keep you updated if there is any change to this,” O’Gorman said.
“I recognise that many services may face staffing challenges, due to staff being Covid-19 positive or having to isolate. I would encourage these services to avoid full service closure if possible, unless directed by the HSE to close on public health grounds, or where there are no staff available to provide a service. I realise that many services may be dealing with temporary staff shortages. If they are unable to get relief staff, they could consider closing a pod or pods temporarily, with full service closure to be used if no other options are available.”
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