COVID-19: Impact on School Opening

Part of Private Members' Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 12:15 pm on 31 December 2020.

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Photo of Kellie Armstrong Kellie Armstrong Alliance 12:15, 31 December 2020

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

To be honest, it gets my geek up when you start talking about transport. When somebody has their head right at the knee of a person in order to attach their wheelchair to the floor of a bus, of course they are coming into close contact so why would they not receive a vaccine?

As has been mentioned by others, GSCEs are starting from 11 January, and we still do not know what the COVID tariff will be. Minister, has the CCEA provided you with any contingency plans? That is one thing that would finally help some of those teenagers who are driving their parents to distraction. What is happening with that COVID tariff? We have a week now in which those pupils may or may not be in school; whether there will be any classes for those children depends on their school as there will be remote learning.

So, there are a lot of questions, which is why I am glad that we are debating the motion, although I am sad that we had to bring the Minister to the House in this way. It is a difficult time for everyone, but it is time that we recognised that our teachers have just been put under some of the most intense levels of stress that we could ever have put them under. We did not have to do that; we could have said before Christmas that we knew rightly that this was going to happen because we knew that there were going to be problems. Minister, I ask you today to please give us some clarity, please explain exactly what that medical advice was and please be fair to our pupils.