Schools wont extend Halloween holidays says Stephen Donnelly

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said the Halloween holiday will not be extended because schools are not spreading Covid-19.

He said that children should continue to attend school because the government gives great importance to keeping schools open.

The biggest challenge is for people to work together to control Covid. The next two weeks are likely to see a huge increase in the number of Covid cases in the country.

Donnelly said that currently, there are no plans to impose further restrictions. However, he said the country would move to level 4 or level 5 restrictions in the future if Covid expansion continues to be extreme condition.

At the same time, schools across the country have reopened after the lockdown through a concerted effort and security measures. As a result, the mental, educational and physical well-being of children has been protected and improved, Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said.

Niall Collins, Minister of State at the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, also said that there was no plan to close schools again beyond a week’s holiday for Halloween.

Fianna Fáil TD said the campaign to close schools in the mid-term was aimed at undermining the government’s announced policy of keeping schools open.

Meanwhile, Collins said health experts had assessed current figures that schools were not contributing to the spread of the Covid.