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THIS EVENING, THE government announced a string of measures aimed at allowing pupils return to school safely at the end of August.
Schools around the country have been shut since March due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the roadmap for how they could re-open safely had been long awaited.
At a post-Cabinet press conference this evening, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said “we can’t just declare the schools are open and carry on as if nothing had happened”.
He said there was “no zero risk scenario” but that the package being offered by government was comprehensive and would allow children return to school as safely as possible.
The total package – which has seen the government commit €376 million – will be delivered in a range of areas.
Here’s a breakdown of what the government says it will spend to support schools heading into the next school year:
Already included within the July Stimulus, this €75 million will facilitate preparatory works to be completed in schools to help them re-open.
This will include the refurbishment of school toilets and the reconfiguration of school spaces.
“This will allow all schools to have enhanced cleaning regimes in place to minimise the risk of introduction and spread of Covid-19,” the government said.
“This is being provided on a per pupil basis and is intended to allow an additional four to six hours cleaning per day in schools.”
This is to allow “schools to employ an aide to implement the logistical changes needed in schools”.
This could include moving furniture, changing classroom layouts, set up hand sanitising stations, signage etc.
The amount given to each school will be calculated on a sliding scale to reflect pupil enrolments and school type, the government said.
The government said this would allow schools to replace teachers who’ve been assessed as unable to return to the workplace.
“These staff can work from home in line with arrangements that are consistent with the approach for the civil and public service,” the government said.
This money will go towards preventing the splitting of classes in primary schools which increases the introduction and spread of Covid-19. Examples when this can happen includes absences for self-certified sick leave, exam leave, witness in court etc.
This applies to the likes of Special Needs Assistants (SNAs), caretakers, secretaries and cleaners.
The government said it’s vital that schools have these staff and are able to replace them if they are unable to work.
There is a requirement under the plan for a LWR in each workplace.
The designated LWR provides what the government called an “important support to schools to manage the risk of Covid-19 infection”.
There is a particular requirement to support principals and deputy principals in schools where many also undertake teaching duties.
“This will provide additional time for those teachers to manage the implementation of Covid-19 measures in the schools,” the government said.
(Release time and release days are essentially periods set aside from traditional responsibilities to allow an employee work on specific tasks)
A marquee feature of the supports is the plan to recruit an additional 1,080 teaching posts at post-primary level.
This includes 120 guidance posts to support student wellbeing. The initial allocation will include 600 posts made available to post-primary schools.
The government said: “Additional teaching posts allows these schools the flexibility to manage a variety of complex arrangements including challenges with class sizes and some additional support for school management.
These posts will be allocated based on school type to reflect enrolments and special education provision, along with a reserve of posts to support schools who have specific identified needs in implementing COVID-19 measures.
The government said supervision in post-primary schools is “more complex” as a result of Covid-19.
This comes from additional supervision on corridors, greater oversight for morning, lunch and evening, at lockers, bathrooms and in suspected cases of Covid-19.
This funding will be allocated to schools on a sliding scale to reflect the number of enrolments.
This remains the subject of a public procurement process at this time.
Once completed it will allow schools to drawdown from a national framework the necessary hand sanitiser, PPE including gloves, aprons, masks, visors etc.
A grant will be provided to schools based on a sliding scale to reflect enrolments at the school.
This will allow schools access 17 additional educational psychologists through the National Educational Psychological Service to provide for the wellbeing of students, including students in special schools.
This will help to meet the additional costs that will arise to support the safe transport of pupils on the national transport scheme. Services operated by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education will fully operate as normal.
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Rabbit Ebola. Sounds like an awful death for an animal.
No danger to humans. What about dogs, cats and other wild animals that prey on rabbits?
@John O’Connor: they are all safe for m it but can carry it on their fur or cloths to other rabbits.
Coursing clubs are shamefully and unbelievably, lobbying for the re-issuing of the license taht would enable them to resume capturing hares with nets for use in coursing.
The so-called Coursing Support Group Kerry is demanding that the license be restored, claiming that coursing clubs won’t do any harm if they are permitted to capture hares, as “they’d never course a sick or diseased hare”. Kerry Radio carried the following report today on this:
And backwoods politicians are also pressing for a resumption of nationwide hare capture and live coursing, with an emergency motion on the subject tabled at a meeting of Kerry County Council!
I hope the Minister and the NPWS will reject the pseudo-scientific nonsense emanating from the pro hare coursing lobby and its political apologists.
Coursing practices would greatly increase the risk of the disease spreading: Coursing clubs use nets to catch the animals. They handle them casually and roughly, place them in little boxes (confinement that is totally unnatural and terrifying to them), transport them in vans or car boots to various locations and then pack them into compounds or paddocks where these normally solitary creatures find themselves in a cramped and unnatural environment: conditions ideal for the spreading of the disease.
Coursing clubs have been asserting in recent weeks that if they are permitted to resume capturing hares with nets for their fixtures they will vaccinate the hares they capture against the disease. Some politicians have backed them in this desperate ploy.
What they fail to mention, however, is that 1) the vaccine, called ‘Eravac’, which is licensed in Europe, is not available in Ireland and 2) more importantly, it cannot be applied to hares…just rabbits.
Coursing clubs are NOT conservationists, as they’d like us to believe. They are by definition people who capture hares for the express purpose of setting dogs on them for “sport.”
The ban on hare netting must remain. An entire species should be put at risk just to accommodate people who get their kicks from watching an animal running its life.
@John Fitzgerald: hi john I don’t hear of or see you standing against the travellers whom hunt with lurchers sometimes four and five at a time. The hare has no chance. I’m constantly ringing the Gardaí running them out of land beside me. The Gardaí can do nothing. Just like you.
They kill whatever moves in the land then throw it in a ditch. It’s a very common practice of theirs and what worse it’s all year round.
@John Fitzgerald: Well John, its a pity that the npws and the journal are full of antis like yourself.
Coursing will be back this year, if left to the coursing clubs the hare will multiply and strengthen, also strong talk about the antis planting an infected rabbit, nothing would surprise me with this crowd.
@francis walsh: hilarious that you use “antis” as if it’s a bad thing to be against wild hares being trapped and hoarded together before having to run for their lives just for your bloodthirsty entertainment.
@Stephen:
I’m opposed to all forms of so-called recreational hunting/coursing of hares, whether the ones that are banned or those permitted by law. The netting ban should remain, but of course the Gardai should pursue illegal coursers/hunters and prosecute them. Landowners are getting hell from those gangs. It is important, however, not to blame any one section of society for such activities. The vast majority of travelers are law-abiding people who abhor any form of animal cruelty.
@francis walsh:
“Antis” are people opposed to animal cruelty such as hare coursing…meaning the overwhelming majority of the Irish people. Your allegation re the planting of an infected rabbit is beyond ridiculous and shows how desperate your side has become in recent weeks.
@francis walsh: and pigs will fly ! , how is it that inspite of all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary you can still put these selfish, ignorant views out on social media.
Coursing clubs and those who support them need to wake upto the horrific abuse they inflict on a gentle creature like the Irish hare.
One of the benefits of “breeding like rabbits” is that those rabbits who are fortunate enough to have the right genetic makeup to withstand this virus can rapidly repopulate and make for lost numbers.
Its only a matter of time before some such disease starts to affect humans as well after all there are a lot of similarities between today’s human behaviour and rabbits.
Will the cruel hare coursing stop? Illegal hare coursing will still continue as part of their backward “culture”
@Niall O’Neill: not backward Néill, just great.
Only 2 hares found and the npws which is full of animal anti groups have suspended greyhound coursing, another kick in the teeth to rural Ireland, the government have passed the can and the antis win again.
@francis walsh: “The disease has been found in 12 animals but the actual number of infected rabbits and hares could be far higher as samples in a number of these cases were taken from one animal drawn from a larger group of dead animals…The disease can be transmitted directly through fluids such as saliva and urine or indirectly through clothes, animals or insects..”. You think satisfying your bloodlust is more important than trying to stop the spread of this deadly virus in the hare population?
@francis walsh: “The disease has been found in 12 animals but the actual number of infected rabbits and hares could be far higher as samples in a number of these cases were taken from one animal drawn from a larger group of dead animals…The disease can be transmitted directly through fluids such as saliva and urine or indirectly through clothes, animals or insects..”. You think satisfying your bloodlust is more important than trying to stop the spread of this deadly virus in the hare population?
@francis walsh:
Can’t take chances. Hare coursing already stands condemned and utterly discredited on animal welfare grounds (the hares are mauled and have their bones broken, and if they survive they are passed on to other clubs for re-coursing) but now this horrible “sport” poses a clear existential threat to the the Irish Hare as a species.
@francis walsh:
No, it’s a pro-rural Ireland move to suspend hare netting by gangs of coursers…the disappearance of our iconic Irish Hare from the countryside would be severe blow to rural Ireland and to our wonderful wildlife heritage that is under pressure on many fronts.
@John Fitzgerald: you’re ignorance is consistent John, you really don’t have an idea of what you are talking about.
@francis walsh: what has John said that’s incorrect?
@francis walsh:
Oh but I do know “Francis”…this time the science is against you. It’s not an animal protection group that suspended the hare netting license. A Government department acted in response to a crisis, on the best advice from a team of experts. Any resumption of hare netting by gangs across the country would place the entire species at risk. Imagine, at this time…gangs of whiskey-slugging gougers handling hares, passing them around, shoving into little boxes for transportation around the country…and then dozens of hares at a time bunched into paddocks where they await contrived chases. Add to that the widespread trafficking of hares between clubs (a hare can fetch up to a hundred euro) and you have a recipe for ecological disaster. Coursing clubs do NOT capture hares to vaccinate them or somehow “care” for them. They capture them for the sole and express purpose of setting dogs on them. Fact. So should the Irish Hare have to face possible wipe-out just to appease these gangs of predators?
@John Fitzgerald: you’re a langer.
Wasn’t there cases of a similar infection in Deer in the US over the last couple of years.
Nature’s way is survival of the fittest
@Dave Walsh: Or man’s way of controlling the amount of rabbets
@Alan Scott: that’s what guns are for…
Josephine they were probably doing too much Swinging
Thankfully there is a vaccine out for it. I had my bunny vacinated 2 weeks ago. Kept him out of the garden till then. On a side note. Anyone from Cork know how they rabbits on the Dunnkettle roundabout are doing?
@Edmund Murphy: the vaccine works for rabbits but not hares.
@EillieEs: yep I read your comment on that earlier. Glad it at least works on Rabbits.
@Edmund Murphy: absolutely, just a shame it doesn’t work for hares too
Who framed Roger Rabbit?
There’s a an aids like virus wiping out cats as well…they go off food and waste away in a week..very distressing… Vaccinate…
Elmer Fudd is on the case . We’re hunting wabbits
Is that the mix a my toties ?
Methinks China needs to sharpen up their disease controls, given the widespread pig, poultry, & now the furry wildlife virus outbreaks .
For a country with unlimited state controls, gigantic food production needs, surely they should get their livestock health under strict control.
We don’t need these almost seasonal plagues to spread everywhere.
Methinks China needs to sharpen up their disease controls, given the widespread pig, poultry, & now the furry wildlife. For a country with unlimited state controls, gigantic food production needs, surely they should get their livestock health under strict control.
We don’t need these almost seasonal plagues to spread everywhere.
have your say