A revamped Covid-19 testing and tracing system for schools will be led by public health officials and supplemented by department staff, Minister for Education Norma Foley has said.
As the Irish Times reports, she said “The contact details are being made available to schools on Monday morning as the teams are being rolled out."
Public health officials “have committed to weekly meetings with the unions, two of those meetings have already taken place. They will specifically address any of the issues, from a public health point of view, that are arising in the schools.
“In excess of €375 million has been made available to the schools for all the various measures that need to be put in place in terms of Covid-19. The balance of €226 million is about to be paid for the remainder of the school year. So there is no question that funding isn’t being made available,” she said.
Safety reasons
Speaking on the RTÉ Radio 1 This Week programme on Sunday, she said the request last week that a hand sanitiser be withdrawn from schools for safety reasons, was something she absolutely regretted doing during a mid-term break.
Last week the Department of Education ordered the withdrawal more than 50 hand sanitiser products, following a review of the products after the Department of Agriculture ordered that a hand sanitiser - ViraPro - be withdrawn due to safety issues.
Schools were ordered to stop using 22 hand sanitisers, 14 wipes, eight hand soaps and eight detergents which were removed from the department’s list of approved products because it had not been possible to “confirm their registration status as part of the review”.
Ms Foley said the timing of the removal of the products was “far, far from ideal but it was better to do it once the information came to hand, it was important to act proactively.”
