I raise the issue of what happens when a member of a school community, be it a pupil or staff member, tests positive for Covid-19. I will give an example of what happened in a school in my constituency, for illustrative purposes only because it is a national issue. A member of that particular school community tested positive. The person has other family members in the school. It took five days from contacting the doctor to getting the results of the test. In the meantime, all members of the family self-isolated from the time the doctor referred the person for the test.

The test result was communicated to the principal the next morning and the principal immediately contacted the HSE. Despite the best efforts of the principal, it took five hours, in other words the rest of the school day, for the HSE to respond. In the meantime, the principal, naturally, was anxious and he spoke to his staff members and discussed what they would do. When he received a call that evening from the HSE he was assured that public health was dealing with the case. At this point, it was one week since the person developed symptoms. He was told by the HSE that he should not inform parents and that he should not have informed his staff. He was absolutely taken aback but the HSE insisted this was the advice. He then asked about a template letter for parents. Earlier, we spoke about the possibility of a helpline. The principal contacted the INTO and received some assistance from it. In the meantime, the rumours started. He did not inform parents because he had been told not to but, as the Taoiseach can imagine, it was the talk of the parish. The next day, people contacted the local radio station, which is what people do when they are looking for information. The story was all over the place. The principal, on the back foot, had to go on local radio and explain his actions.

I know each situation is different, and the Minister for Education and Skills told us that public health takes over, but surely good, clear information and trust are crucial in these situations. A basic template letter, helpline or whatever would really have helped. If parents had received some communication from the school ensuring full anonymity and abiding by the general data protection regulation, GDPR, it would have made a real difference. Is there any possibility of having a template letter or a national approach to dealing with cases such as this so principals are not left in the position that they just do not know how to respond?

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. These are very important points. The Deputy said it took five days to get a test. That is not acceptable.

I would like that checked out and the details followed through because it is not in accordance with the national average - that is not just waiting to get a test but right through - which is about 2.2 days. Some 85,000 tests were done last week and there is a capacity to do 100,000 tests. It is one of the better testing systems in Europe. Right now, we are testing more people per population than most. Some 52,000 tests were taken in the community, 20,000 in acute settings while 13,000 serial tests have been undertaken. That is a significant amount of ongoing work. That is why the delays in the case raised by the Deputy have to be fed back into the system to ensure it does not happen again.

A letter was issued last week to all schools, together with a HSE document entitled Schools Pathway for Covid-19, the Public Health Approach. It sets out the approach to managing isolated confirmed cases of Covid-19 within a school community, as well as the principles which will underpin the management of outbreaks, or potential outbreaks, and the aligned testing strategy within an educational facility.

It is important to note that the response to confirmed cases or outbreaks of Covid-19 in the community or in a school is the responsibility of and will be led and managed by the HSE departments of public health. It is at pains to state that all decisions as to appropriate actions following a confirmed case or outbreak will be made by its teams in the context of a full public health risk assessment. Any actions to be taken by the school will be informed and guided by the HSE departments of public health. School management will be informed as and when actions, such as the exclusion of children or staff, partial or full closure, are deemed necessary on public health grounds. If the school is not so informed, it has not been deemed necessary by the HSE departments of public health.

Again, the HSE has stated the definition of close contacts within a school will be variable and will be determined by a risk assessment that will take account of individual factors within each school or each class. It will not be automatically assumed that a whole class will be deemed as close contacts. Close contacts will be notified and advised to restrict their movements and present for testing on day zero and day seven. Close contacts will restrict their movements for 14 days, even in the event that Covid-19 is not detected in both of these tests.

There is no blanket policy to test entire classes or years. The testing strategy will be aligned to the public health risk assessment which may recommend widespread swabbing in a class or school under HSE mass testing procedures. Some of these have occurred. Up to 3,000 have been done in various scenarios with a positivity rate of about 73. I can check those figures and send them to the Deputy.

A letter did go out. A template is available. Within that template, however, there are significant variables and discretion in terms of the risk as assessed locally on the ground by the HSE departments of public health.

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply.

The issue is that of clear communication and that parents and staff know what is happening. I am glad some sort of a template letter has gone out. It will help because in this situation the principal was completely on the back foot. If trust breaks down between a principal and parents or staff, it is very hard to rebuild that. I am glad we are making progress.

There is extra pressure on teachers. Before students arrive in the morning, right through the day and during breaks, until the students leave in the evening, teachers are constantly under pressure and have to be extra vigilant. There is simply no let-up in the day. I have spoken with principals, not teachers, who have said there is a real risk of burnout with some of their staff.

Will the Taoiseach work with the unions to look at the reality of managing and teaching in schools in order that, quite rightly, our schools can remain open and be safe places for the whole school community?

I thank the Deputy. I agree with her on the need to underpin and support principals in schools as they navigate and manage an unprecedented public health pandemic. It is to their credit, and to the credit of teachers, SNAs and all staff within a school, that they have worked extremely hard to make the reopening of schools, and their continued opening, possible.

I salute and affirm the work they are doing in that regard. The Deputy is also correct that additional stresses and strains go with Covid, such as constantly urging students to avoid gathering together and making sure that all the various guidelines are being adhered to. I spoke to some teachers during the past week about this. The school environment now is more different than ever before because of all the public health restrictions in schools and how the schools are managed, broken up and so on. That has to be acknowledged. Equally, however, I have spoken to many teachers who are happy they are back at school and that the children at primary and students at post-primary are also back. The learning environment is key to a child's chances in life, and prolonged absence from a learning environment or from school can be very detrimental to a child or young person's development, so we have to work with and support those involved in this regard. The Department of Education and Skills is continuing its engagement with the partners in education, including the unions, with a view to trying to make sure we all work together to ensure that what has been a strong partnership to date continues to underpin the development of our children and students.