Covid-19: Schools set to stay closed until January 31
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Schools look set to stay closed until January 31, after the Fianna Fáil social media team and TD Niamh Smyth appeared to confirm the move on social media.
Both accounts have since deleted the tweets which claimed a decision had been made to keep schools closed until the end of the month.
It's likely that all primary and secondary schools will close until January 31, with a move to remote learning until then.
Provisions for special education and the disability sector will be made to ensure those with extra educational needs do not fall behind.
The Taoiseach appeared to confirm the move himself earlier today, saying that keeping schools closed until the end of January is "on the agenda" to lower the movement of people.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's News at One, Micheál Martin said that the Cabinet sub-committee, which meets today, will look at special needs schools in particular because of fears that students would regress during another school closure. He said that any closure would be reviewed on January 30 along with the restrictions announced on December 30.
"There is an issue with having a million people on the go in the community and that's what schools being open means."
The Taoiseach said that Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan and HSE head Paul Reid had outlined the seriousness of the outbreak and said there was "an agreed objective to suppress the virus" which meant "a significant reduction in mobility" of people back to levels last seen in March.
Mr Martin said he was passionate about education, so was "fully conscious" of the decision that is being weighed up. But he said that something needed to be done to protect the rest of the school year, despite his belief that schools are safe environments.
Mr Martin said that due to the presence of the UK strain of Covid-19 in Ireland, "we must be extra vigilant".
Asked whether more notice should have been given to parents on the closure, Mr Martin said that there was "no easy way to implement crude measures".
"We need to go back to the old phrase of flattening the curve. We need to turn this around."
He said that his government's aim is to run the Leaving Cert as planned in June.
Mr Martin said that the closures of creche and childcare facilities would also be discussed, as well as the closure of construction sites.
"We will be taking decisions today in terms of achieving the objective to lessen mobility. It's not about how any one sector is performing, it's about a collective societal response."
However, the Taoiseach said that it was unlikely that the five-kilometre exercise restriction would be cut to two kilometres, as had happened in March.
Mr Martin said that he did not agree that the vaccine rollout was "slow". He said that he was aiming to have 135,000 people vaccinated by the end of February and while he understood frustrations particularly with EU delays but said that a safe and lasting rollout was key.
He said "substantial amount of vaccination" would take place by spring.
, with regard to school reopenings, Dr Tony Holohan pointed out that NPHET had “never said” that children did not contract Covid-19.
“They do get it, they don’t get it to the same extent as the rest of the population.
“The work that has been done across schools, to maintain the school environment as a safe place, we can see that in the data. We’re now in a situation, and we have expressed concerns about this, these levels of infections in children of school-going age have increased very significantly, even if they are less than the average rate in the population."