Rose Conway-Walsh urges retained vaccination hubs and campus clarity

Thank you, Chair, and I hope that student kept you long enough on the door to give us an advance. I'm glad he was doing his job. The first thing I want to do is I really want to come in. I've recently visited Ballyfermot College of Further Education and the principal there and her team, Cecilia Munro. I really, really thought the work that was done there, the building belies the extent of the work that's been done, particularly around animation, but all other things as well. And you could feel the ethos of the college in terms of it being student focused. So I just really want to commend that. And I just want to say again, as I've often said, the colleges of further education, they haven't had the capital investment that's needed, but the fantastic work that's been done on it. And I want to encourage people all around the country just to look at what is available through further education. And to commend everybody involved there. And Dr. Ryan, I think the proposal that you have made in terms of advocating the retention of the vaccination infrastructure in or near the institutes in August and September is very significant. And I want to ask you, have you formally requested that from public health? And does it also move? Because I think it's a really good idea, even for September, October, where we don't have the facilities, where we don't have the facilities even there at the moment, that for each of the colleges, there could be a vaccination centre. And I think that would work as a preventative measure that would certainly be well worth while later on. And finally, I just want to ask, and I just want to have this clear in my head. Can we, right as we are now, can we meet the demands of 100% of those who want to come to college on campus? Or will there be a percentage of students who may be turned away? And just in terms of the capacity of the colleges, the increase in the numbers last year, the increase again this year, if everybody decided right now here today, they wanted to be on campus, can we meet that, can we meet that demand? Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Whoever wants to go first. Yeah, just on the vaccination piece, we had a testing centre on campus, and again, vaccination centre, we'd work with the HSE if that's helpful, because I think accessibility will be particularly important. And a lot of our staff were involved in that, so we'd welcome that. And the question about, I'm not sure are you asking, is it just in, specifically around the on campus or the students who are at university, will they, will they be coming back to campus or not? Or is it a more general question around capacity? No. No, what I'm trying to get at is, you know, will there be restrictions on the numbers in the classes? And will that mean that, say, we can accommodate 70% of students who want to come back 60% or whatever? I just want to get a picture in terms of expectation. Yeah, and that depends, and when you say where we are right now, it depends, to me, to a great extent on the vaccination rollout and to what extent the broader context of the public health environment has changed. There may well still, particularly in the context of ventilation, be limits on capacity of rooms. And in that context, we will either make the material online or have an experience online, and or have supplementary classes, smaller classes, double teaching, if you like. But it depends on the broader context, which, as of right now, we are not clear on. But our anticipation or expectation is that we will go as far as possible in making that on campus experience meaningful. And there are all of those other constraints, if you like, around that, which are continued on it. And I'd say again, the 19th of July plans and guidelines, particularly critical to us in making those plans, and then being able to communicate to students accordingly. And again, we're taking a sectoral approach to those communications. I hope that answers the question, I think, I hope. And just for myself, if I may, Deputy, just quick for our answers in light of the time constraint. I know John will mention Ballet Firmish College of Education, and thank you very much for mentioning it. Someone coming from the creative arts side, just the huge impact that that school has. And thank you for saying that. On the question of, thank you again, also for mentioning that retention of vaccination centres. That was a proposal that we put through the National Steering Group. And I've been sort of banging that drum for some time now, as people like John will attest. I'm conscious that the single shot Janssen, and that's being offered to that age cohort now, that's going to change the game. But again, all was this vaccination was going to be a social compact. And the idea behind this was to make it as easy as possible for everyone to have the chance to have the invitation and take it. And I'm conscious of younger staff, and I'm conscious of the students in that. And on the question of restricting numbers, again, just like the President, obviously, the ambition is to get as many on site as possible. But it's actually the truth is, it's too hard to tell at this stage, we just have to wait and see how this works out. It may be the case that we won't be able to have certain large classes in full on campus, but we're watching that and monitoring it all the way through the summer. Thank you.