Bríd Smith demands HEPA filters, criticises school Covid handling

I think probably I'm going to just focus on the schools and the reason I'm going to do it is because well over a year ago I started really questioning the Minister, the Minister for Education Norma Foley about what was going on in the schools and I did so because I was personally involved with a number of teachers who were in a group called the Forgotten Families and they were teachers who were vulnerable at school and who stayed at home because of their vulnerability to avoid Covid but they offered their time and their services to teach children online who had to stay at home because of vulnerability in their household and this group was ignored completely by the Department of Education who continually told the parents that they must send their children to school even though they were vulnerable members of the family in the house the teachers themselves were constantly being checked and rechecked by Medmark and told they had to go back to school and teach that there was no problem in the classrooms now one of these women who's a personal friend of mine went back to school with all her vulnerability and within two weeks she got Covid she now suffers from long Covid and only two days ago she told me Breed I don't think I'll ever teach again she's extremely weak she's not able but she hasn't got the energy she's not able to concentrate or think much and what a tragedy that the Irish education system has lost such a wonderful teacher and a personal tragedy for her that her entire career has been wiped out and that was because there was an attempt as was said by Deputy Murphy to create a mantra that somehow magically schools were safe and were these little bubbles of protection from a pandemic that existed nowhere else and that has been blown out of the water in the last two weeks we have seen that cases among of them COVID among children 20 times what they were in the last year 20 times in the last two weeks and that is because we have allowed a situation to become out of control and to say that it comes from the community not the schools schools are in our community they are part of our community and like children go to school they also come home from school and they bring the virus back into the house and this has been ignored to the point of the type that we have been able to be able to have been able to do the public that is the most important thing and I think we need to speak out for them and for the children and their parents who this morning faced a real stressy situation at the gates when the principals got a letter late yesterday to tell them that from now on masking of nine to twelve year olds is mandatory and that overnight they were to implement that and that if there were children who were vulnerable they could get a doctor's note. How do you get a doctor's note overnight? How does a principal who's trying to manage hundreds of nine to twelve year old children and their very stressed out parents implement a policy of mandatory masking of that nature without giving them time to convince the kids, to show them, to bring their sisters and brothers in, to show them how this is how your older sisters and brothers do it, this is why we need to do it, to protect each other. I think the Department of Education has really made a bag of dealing with Covid in the schools and I say that without any qualms whatsoever and I think that the vast majority of people have a real distaste for politicians who pretend that what's staring you in the face is not staring you in the face. So to completely repeat and repeat that schools are safe and schools are safe when the dogs in the street knew that they weren't is a real kick in the face to the population. So what has been said already about the HEPA filters and the role they play, they are not by themselves a mantra for getting rid of Covid, they are part of a suite of measures that must be introduced and when Covid broke out and we were looking at what we could do, we knew that 80% of our schools were not properly ventilated. They don't cost a king's ransom to buy, you could probably fit every classroom in the school. I think Richard and Paul got a figure of 12 million for every classroom in the country to have a HEPA filter system for our alternative budget and if that's the case then why are we not spending this money to protect or help protect children, teachers and their families from the spread of the virus. And I'll just quote from the expert group on the role of ventilation in reducing the transmission of Covid from the 2nd of March in 2021, standalone HEPA filter devices can be useful in reducing airborne transmission in spaces with insufficient ventilation ie 80% of our schools. They are an easy to apply and cost-effective short-term mitigation measure. They can be useful in reducing airborne transmission and important steps are take need to be taken now to prepare for the autumn and the winter. They told us that back in March. We, this country, chose to ignore us, this government chose to ignore us and now children, their parents, principals and teachers are paying a hefty price. So like has been said I hope you don't oppose this bill but rather that you push it through very very quickly and ensure that like they've done in other countries spend a few bob and provide the schools with HEPA filters. I know of one school in my constituency where the principal used a bit of excess from the budget to supply HEPA filters in every classroom but not all principals have that excess in the budget. I know of other schools where parents are pooling in money to buy HEPA filters for the classrooms that their children attend. Why are the government failing people in this way? It needs to be addressed with urgency.