I extend my thoughts and sympathies to the families of the 93 people whose deaths from Covid-19 were reported yesterday and to all those who have been bereaved in the course of this pandemic. We are living through what are difficult times for many families.

The Government has abandoned plans to reopen special education schools and facilities this week. The Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, has twice promised that they would reopen. She has twice failed to deliver. The promises have fallen apart due to Government incompetence. The Minister's approach in the media over the past 24 hours of finger pointing and seeking to scapegoat SNAs and teachers is fooling no one.

Everyone wants to see children and young people with additional needs back at school. That has been and remains a shared objective because they are the cohort of students that missed out most when schools closed in the spring. The regression that was experienced by many as a result of the loss of their supports and routines was alarming. It caused incredible distress to them and their parents. Now, these children and young people are losing out again and their parents are distressed once more.

The responsibility for this mess lies squarely with the Government. It told anyone who cared to listen that education during the pandemic was a priority, yet it has failed to put together anything resembling a plan B. No thought was given to how education would continue if schools had to close due to high rates of infection. Such a plan B could have been, and should have been, on the shelf, having been discussed with all stakeholders - unions, management bodies, students and parents. The Government has had since August to put in place these contingencies.

By the way, special education is up and running in the North and across Europe. People are left wondering how and why it is that the same cannot happen here. The truth is that, instead of being prepared, the Government scrambled at the last minute to put together a plan. It fell apart because there had been no consultation and the Government sought to bounce stakeholders. The Government has a tendency to dictate policy by press release. We saw the Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, racing to gazump each other in the media. That approach has resulted in serious implications for children and young people and their families.

The Minister now claims that her plan collapsed because of bad faith. Let me tell the House what bad faith is. It was bad faith to give these children, as she did, the impression that they would be back in school when the work was not done to ensure that schools were safe and all the people involved in delivering the plan were on board. All of this happened because the Minister made a big promise and has not done the work to deliver it.

Children with special educational needs should be priority No. 1 in education. They should be the first back into the classroom, but that must happen on the basis of agreement and of ensuring that schools and staff are safe. The talks that I hope are ongoing today need to take some serious shape now. SNAs and teachers want to be back in school. I recall clearly how, in September, they moved heaven and earth to get their classes open again with little notice. The Taoiseach might advise the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, that comparing these professionals - teachers, SNAs and others - to mother and baby homes is not just crass and clueless, but a vain attempt to shift blame.

The truth is the outstanding concerns have to be addressed. The other truth is this cannot go on forever. We need to see a result. We cannot allow this to drift into the general reopening of schools.

Thank you, Deputy. The time is up.

These children and their parents do not have the luxury of time. What we need now is a real, concrete and deliverable solution.

First of all, I want to sympathise with the families and all those who have been bereaved as a result of Covid-19, particularly those 93 families that we heard of yesterday. It illustrates the extraordinarily devastating impact that the virus has had on our entire society and community.

May I also take the opportunity briefly on behalf of the Government and on behalf of the Oireachtas to wish President-elect Joe Biden the very, very best as he begins his journey as President of the United States? He is a very loyal friend to Ireland and has made no secret of that affection for this country. We look forward to welcoming him to Ireland during his Presidency.

It is with regret that I heard Deputy McDonald's contribution. I think it is overly partisan. It is overly political. It seeks to attack the Minister and the Government for seeking to work in good faith with all the partners in education to provide for children with special needs and their families. When we closed all schools at once, the Government took the decision originally not to reopen schools because we did not want 1 million people on the move, given the very high level of community transmission of the virus and the high levels of it in our community, but we wanted to provide for children with special needs. Everyone in the House did. I can quote every Deputy, and every spokesperson, saying we must do something to provide for children with special needs and that it cannot be all closures and no openings. Some Deputies suggested that maybe we could open on alternate days or particular parts of the week and that we needed to make some provision. The Government worked in good faith to do that. I can go back through what Deputy McDonald and other Deputies said during the first lockdown in terms of the necessity of having schools open for children with special needs. Everyone commented after the first lockdown on the degree of regression and the very negative impact on families. That idea or principle was shared by the education partners on good faith as well.

It is absolutely untrue to say there was no consultation. I just do not understand how Deputy McDonald can stand up and say something like that. It was just so untrue and it illustrates that this is a partisan political attack by Deputy McDonald, not a helpful or constructive approach to this issue.

I can go through it. Even last week on the public airwaves, the general secretary of the INTO said there would definitely be schools open this week and there would be members of the INTO and Fórsa in the schools. I think he said that in good faith. I think the leadership of the unions genuinely wanted and were anxious to try to get some provision for children with special needs. There has been an extraordinary degree of consultation on public health. That the webinar saw up to 14,000 or more participating illustrates the concerns and interest out there and the genuine contribution of many special needs assistants and teachers across the country. My sense of it is that there is a real and genuine anxiety out there. Notwithstanding the sharing of the objective of opening schools for special needs children, the wherewithal was not there to get a critical mass back into our schools right now. That is my sense of it without apportioning blame to anybody, but I can go through all the quotes. I can go through all the meetings that have taken place between the Department and the education partners.

I can go through all of the responses-----

I thank the Taoiseach. The time is up.

-----of the Minister for Education on a range of issues that were raised by the unions on behalf of their members, all of which were acceded to and received positive responses.

I thank the Taoiseach.

I stand by the Minister's and the Government's sincere commitment to open schools for children with special needs. It is wrong to play politics with children with special needs, which is what I witnessed this morning in the Deputy's contribution.

As the Taoiseach very well knows, holding the Government to account is not playing politics. I point to the irony of a Government that itself has played politics and rushed very quickly to point fingers at SNAs, teachers and anyone bar itself for this fiasco.

There is a shared objective for special education to function. The Minister says that she is committed to that, but she has twice announced its reopening and has twice failed to deliver. The consultation that happened was clearly insufficient and the Minister jumped the gun. She made the big announcement, to considerable fanfare, that services would resume, but she did not have the plan in place. She had not settled or reassured teachers and SNAs, the caring, wonderful professionals who deliver the services and support to these wonderful children and young people. The plan had not been finalised. By any calculation, that was a gross misjudgment on her part.

I thank Deputy McDonald.

What is worse is that after the fact, there was an attempt to lay the blame, scapegoat and be incredibly divisive among the special education community.

The time is up.

That is not good government. Is the Taoiseach telling the Dáil that he is reassured that the Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, can deliver an agreed return to school and services-----

I thank the Deputy. The time is up.

-----and that it can be done in the short term with the agreement and the necessary, reasonable assurances that SNAs and teachers are looking for and rightly deserve?

I mean this in the best of good faith. I do not detect anything of substance in Deputy McDonald's contribution this morning on this matter. She has been going on about a plan B for a long time, with no concrete fleshing out of what that is. Schools reopened in September through partnership involving the parents, the unions, the Department and the Minister, and with a lot of resources provided by the Government. It was a successful reopening from September to Christmas. Public health played a very significant role in that, in particular Dr. Kevin Kelleher and Dr. Abigail Collins from the HSE, who were available every week to consult with leadership teams in education in respect of public health guidance and responses. The whole journey up to now has been a shared one between the partners in education and that engagement will continue.

On 15 January the INTO general secretary made the point that a significant number of Fórsa and INTO members would be going back into special classes and into mainstream education. He said he believed that every single school in Ireland would be opening its doors late next week-----

I thank the Taoiseach. His time is up.

-----to children with additional needs. I think he meant that in good faith, but the point I am making is that it is clear that the Minister, Deputy Foley, equally felt that that was the trajectory of travel. What issued on the Friday evening was an agreed guidance, which was agreed by all the partners, to go out to the school management and principals because they needed to get an advance guidance framework prior to 21 January.