Rose Conway-Walsh Demands HEPA Filters for Classrooms

We have known for some time now that the COVID-19 is an airborne virus and we know that the ventilation, including air filtration, has a key role to play in protecting students and staff in our schools. Sinn Fein have been calling for adequate ventilation measures for the Gutsby year now. Will the Minister commit to providing HEPA air filtration devices for every classroom that needs them? And if not, why not? Thank you Deputy. Ensuring that schools can operate safely has been a key priority for me as Minister for Education. The Department of Education has always been guided by public health advice in relation to appropriate COVID-19 infection prevention and control measures in our schools. These measures protect students, their parents and school staff and are effective. Public health continue to advise that the two most important actions to prevent the introduction spread of COVID-19 spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses is by ensuring no one with new onset symptoms attend school and that all recommended infection prevention and control measures are in place in line with the school COVID response plans. Each school was provided with an updated COVID-19 response plan in advance of the return to school. Significant additional resources of 639 million were put into schools in the last academic year to keep schools safe. Further funding of 57.6 million has been paid by way of COVID-19 capitation to schools in September for the implementation of infection prevention and control measures for this term alone. This funding will cater for school costs related to hand hygiene measures, PPE requirements, enhanced cleaning supports and supervision. At primary level, additional management resources for principal release days were provided for principals and deputy principals. Teacher supply panels were also expanded to cover the majority of primary schools nationwide and a recent review teaching posts added, resulting in approximately 480 teaching posts on these panels available to provide substitute cover in schools. At post-primary level, over 1,000 teaching posts were provided to support social distancing within classrooms, to provide for enhanced supervision arrangements in order to manage and prevent congregation of large groups of students and ensure the careful movement in a socially distant manner to classes for specialist subjects where it is neither practical nor possible to remain in the classroom. This funding also included additional posts for guidance provision. is an important part of the measures to keep our schools safe. Updated guidance for schools and practical steps for the deployment of good ventilation practices in schools was provided at the end of May following the work of an expert group that carefully considered the role of ventilation in managing COVID-19. The Department's guidance is clear that where the recommended measures have been undertaken and poor ventilation continues to exist in a particular room, air cleaners may be considered as an additional measure in conjunction with other methods of ventilation that are available. Mr. Minister, we all want schools to be open and functioning well, but we cannot pretend that COVID-19 is not in our schools. Too often the Department seems to minimise these issues. I see even in Mayo today, one principal has come out, 15 per cent of children are at home with COVID-19. If education being opened is as important as we say it is, surely we should be throwing the kitchen sink at it. I acknowledge the ventilation measures that you have outlined. However, the CO2 monitors alone are not enough to ensure schools remain open safely and functioning well. It is crunch time, Minister, and I am urging you to go back to your department and seriously examine the role HEPA filters can play here. Sinn Féin wants HEPA filter systems in all classrooms and we need to resource schools to put these in place. This would cost less than £30 million. The Department of Education needs rapid access and to publish costings. We have known for a long time that ventilation that ventilation was a crucial issue and you need to do everything you can to keep classrooms as safe as possible. I want to turn to the antigen testing minister and the tracing regime which was announced last week. Just at the outset, just to be very clear that we have followed public health advice and guidance in our schools. It is the expert view of public health that our schools are places of low transmission, largely because of the very significant and substantial infection prevention and control measures that are in schools. Specifically in relation to CO2 monitors were suggested and they are available in our schools. Equally in terms of ventilation, we have been very clear that at every point if there are issues of ventilation they will be and can be addressed. Indeed, sometimes on occasion, public health has been very clear in telling us that natural ventilation is the most important type of ventilation, but where there are specific measures, whether it is a vent, whether it is a window, whatever it happens to be, and if there are more substantial issues, we have a technical team available to schools, schools can apply for emergency works, which they have done and have been supported in doing. All measures that are required in terms of ventilation are being put in place in schools, whatever those measures might be. Minister, principals are already at the end of their tether and now it seems the responsibility for contact tracing seems to fall solely to principals and parents. Will the Minister ask the HSE to ensure that public health teams have a significant role in contact tracing in our schools? We need school specific contact tracing. I think many schools staff were very concerned with the details of the antigen testing plan. They are rightly asking what protections in terms of antigen testing is in place for them. Given that school staff are not part of pods in the classrooms, is there even a possibility of staff receiving antigen tests? There are further concerns about the delays between a child being deemed a pod contact and them receiving their antigen tests through the post. The advice there is that children should continue to go to school until such time as they have a negative antigen test. That means a child who may have COVID may continue to attend school for days whilst waiting for their tests in the post. What have you done to ensure a rapid access to antigen testing? Have you examined tests being delivered directly to schools or collected from a HSE location? Thank you. Again, to reiterate and not to repeat myself, we follow best practice public health advice in our schools. Indeed, I would suggest that that is what we have done in wider society also. You will be aware that it has been the expert judgment of the CMO that there is now a role for antigen testing in our schools, and the HSE have been charged with responsibility to rule that out. You are aware also of the mechanism where if a child tests positive, parents are being asked to inform the principal, and in turn the principal has been asked to inform the parents within the pod without giving the personal detail of the original child. Equally so, if there are more than two outbreaks within the classroom within a seven-day period, apart from the original pod, antigen testing will be made available to the entire class. In that instance also, there will be accommodation for any staff member who is related to the pod or indeed within the class. In terms of the mechanism of receiving them in the post, you will be aware that that is the current situation as regards to wider society. There is no question of principals or anybody else within the school sector being asked to do the contact tracing. Equally so, just to make it very clear, that public health continue and remain available to schools where the need arises. Thank you, Minister. Thank you.