‘State must match commitment schools have shown’, say Catholic patrons

A Catholic schools’ representative body has welcomed the HSE’s revamped test and trace system, saying earlier shortcomings were “not acceptable”.

From Monday, November 2 on, a revamped Covid-19 testing and tracing system for schools will be led by public health officials and supplemented by department staff, the Minister for Education Norma Foley announced last week.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Seamus Mulconry of the Catholic Primary School Management Association (CPSMA) welcomed the new system.

“I’m delighted to see that the HSE is putting in those additional resources and I’m hopeful that that will lead to improvement in terms of school principals,” he said.

“We are very fortunate regarding the quality or the calibre of people working in our schools. If we give them the support, they’ll keep the schools open.

“But they have a right to expect that the state will match the level of professionalism and commitment that they have shown.”

Critical

Mr Mulconry was critical of the earlier system collapse which he said left schools “hanging”.

“We had situations where principals were made aware of a case by a parent, a school community knew there was a positive case and they were left hanging for up to five days – that’s not acceptable,” he said.

“When schools were back first, there was a service available which was reasonable. Not perfect but reasonable. But then we started to notice about ten days before the contact system crashed that the service was degrading.”

Mr Mulconry was confident schools would remain open until the Christmas break, but warned that the flu season will add extra pressure: “In November/December, the weather will be getting worse – the normal cases of flu, which will be difficult to tell from Covid-19, will be getting greater, which will mean increased pressure,” he said.