NI Executive blasted for failure to put in place adequate infection controls ahead of schools' reopening

Peter Weir, Stormont Education Minister

Education workers have the right, indeed the responsibility, to stand to protect themselves and the wider public health from serious and imminent risk

Donal O'Cofaigh, Cross Community Labour councillor for Enniskillen encouraged workers to stand ready to demand and secure basic infection control regimes should schools reopen next week without adequate protections in place.

"As the recent exams fiasco demonstrates, it is vitally important for our young people that we see the reopening of schools but it is also vital that this occurs safely with adequate infection controls to protect children, their families and the staff working in schools and in public transportation. The total inadequacy of the infection controls put in place to date in schools by the Northern Ireland Executive has been highlighted by a recent statement of all four unions representing education support staff, NIPSA, Unison, GMB and Unite.

"Just like in any other workplace, workers in schools and on the buses at risk of 'serious and imminent' risk have legal protections in withdrawing themselves to a safe distance, raise their concerns with management and return only when the situation has been remedied.

"The responsibility for this looming crisis lies wholly at the feet of the Northern Ireland Executive who have completely failed to put in place basic infection control measures but if next week when pupils begin to return or indeed after that if workers feel that they are putting themselves at serious and imminent risk then it is their legal right, indeed responsibility, to protect themselves and the wider public health. 

"The continued absence of perspex screens from Education Authority vehicles is a cause of grave concern to many drivers, as is the unwillingness to put in place adequate cleansing regimes. Drivers have highlighted the fact to me that the social bubble model being applied within schools is unlikely to survive contact with reality on buses. There are genuine risks to drivers in this rural area - many of whom tend to be older and have higher incidences of underlying conditions risking more serious impacts should they be infected. 

"Teachers and classroom assistants have told me of their concerns that schools which have been chronically underfunded for years are now being expected to find the money to put in place effective physical infection control measures. They point to the Executive's move to scrap two metre social distancing demonstrating the total absence of concern those in power have for the welfare of teachers, children or their families. 

"The Northern Ireland Executive is pushing a premature and low-cost reopening of schools in the face of rising incidences of Covid-19 infections. Pupils, their families and education and transport workers should not be endangered by a corporate agenda driven by the need to prioritise profits over public safety", Cllr O'Cofaigh said.