Opening of primary schools is feasible - but on a phased basis, says public health expert

By Jess Casey and Daniel McConnell

The general secretary of the primary teachers’ union believes it is feasible to reopen primary schools but it will have to be done in a careful way and on a phased basis.

John Boyle of the Irish National Teachers’’ Organisation (INTO) said that consultation between the union and the Department of Education had yet to begin.

“It would be very different in different schools. Small rural schools would have their own challenges with transport or with having four or five classes in the one classroom."

Standard classrooms measure 60m sq, he told RTÉ.

“If you have 15 children, that would barely give them 4m sq around them, two metres between each child.”

Teachers and schools will want to work with the public health advice and plan for it appropriately.

You could see half a class come in in the morning, and leave at lunchtime, he said, adding that the class could then be deep-cleaned before the next cohort of students came in.

All of these types of issues won’t be organised in a weekend. We would want to be coming back on an orderly phased basis.

Public health expert Gabriel Scally said he is in favour of beginning to lift the restrictions on schools safely.

Gabriel Scally

"I do think it’’s very important. Children, particularly children whose parents may not be terribly well off, they may not have the internet, they may not have a computer, their education, their development and their mental well-being is probably in danger of suffering.

“I certainly think it should be looked at," he told RTÉ.

It all depends on keeping the virus down and the number of new cases in the community dropping away significantly in the neighbourhood, in the community. That depends on really good testing and contract tracing.

Although the Government would like to see schools reopened, a date has not yet been set as the decision will depend on the most up to date public health advice.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the Government is examining if primary school children can return to school as part of measures designed to reopen parts of the economy.

However, he said he would not speculate on when that may be.

“What we’re working on at the moment is a plan that’ll be ready, end of April early May,” he said.

“In advance of the May 5 big day if you like what we’re supposed to set out is a stepwise plan, which indicates how we would reopen the country in different steps and what are the criteria that would have to be met to allow us to move from one step to the next. Until we have that I prefer not to speculate,” he said, adding that he understands that a lot of people are starting to find lockdown restrictions hard.

“I’d prefer not to raise hopes or raise expectations, only to dash them. What we are working on is a stepwise plan, whereby we could start to reopen certain services certain parts of the economy, and then reviewed every two to three weeks, depending on how things are going in terms of the spread of the virus, but I’d rather give people certainty when we have that towards the end of April early May, than to speculate on that when it is not yet agreed.”