The principal of a Carlow school has called for “straightforward advice” on Hepa filters.
Simon Lewis, Principal at Carlow Educate Together told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show that the information on Hepa filters was confusing and said that the Department of Education should have tendered for devices at national level.
“The information that came from the Department of Education basically said go out and get your Hepa filters. Now, I consider myself a decent teacher - I am pretty good at education - but I am definitely not a Hepa filter expert and in my inbox this morning, there are about a dozen ads with prices for these things running from a couple of hundred euro to a couple of thousand euro and to be honest, I don’t know where to turn.
“You are trying your best in really trying circumstances and just not getting the advice that we really need.
“The advice from the Department of Education was to contact our local engineer. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have my local engineer on speed-dial. They are great at throwing out these statements about contacting your local somebody or other but again, we just would like straightforward advice.
“We are all in the same boat. We don’t need these so-called bespoke solutions. We simply need to know what do we need and where do we get it and actually preferably, it would be nice if the Department of Education could tender that one out for us.
“Just take one job off our backs, that would be nice.”
Attendance at his school today was at about 70 per cent as many parents decided to keep their children home.
“My favourite comment on that came not from a health expert but from a parent. She basically said she wasn’t going to be sending her child to schools to be watching movies, eating popcorn and catching Covid. I think that kind of sums it up really.”
