Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2021-12-15
============================================================

Paul Kehoe (FG), Wexford

There has been much talk in recent weeks about closing schools early because of the concerns relating to Covid and, specifically, the new Omicron surge. I ask the Minister to confirm that schools will remain open until the last day of term, which is in the middle of next week. A significant number of experts have stated in recent weeks that this should be used as a circuit-breaker, but the same experts have a different opinion on each of the seven days of the week, depending on what suits the media on the day. Children have gone through a significant amount in recent times. Their schooling has been disrupted for the past 18 months. Many of the Covid cases arise from after-school activities such as play dates and birthday parties and so on. I do not want to be a killjoy in the context of birthday parties or play dates but parents have to take responsibility for after-school activities.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-12-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-12-15