{"id":1726,"date":"2021-11-17T09:55:40","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T09:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/"},"modified":"2021-11-17T09:55:40","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T09:55:40","slug":"minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is about time the Minister took control and demonstrated some leadership<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Minister for Education is missing in action as schools struggle to cope with a huge increase in the incidence of covid, according to Social Democrats Education Spokesperson Gary Gannon.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur school communities are being crushed under the pressure of covid. They are struggling to suppress the virus in classrooms and scrambling around to find substitute teachers – which is being compounded by an absence of leadership and guidance from the Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is the Minister for Education? She is missing in action. Antigen testing in schools has been promised for months and there is still no indication of when it will be rolled out. Meanwhile, nothing has been done to address the ongoing substitution crisis in schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government repeatedly states that keeping schools open is a priority, as it should be. Yet, it refuses to give schools the tools that would help them to do this safely. If we want schools to withstand this latest surge of covid, then it is essential that close contacts of confirmed cases are identified quickly. This cannot be done in the absence of a programme of antigen testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know that speed is of the essence when dealing with a virus that is growing exponentially in the community. Why is it that the Minister, and her Department, have failed to learn this lesson?<\/p>\n

\u201cAn expert group, chaired by the State\u2019s chief scientific advisor Mark Ferguson, recommended antigen testing in schools as far back as March \u2013 eight months ago. The ECDC recommended antigen testing in schools from at least July. Despite this, we are still none-the-wiser about when this programme will commence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not good enough. It is about time the Minister took control and demonstrated some leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

17 November, 2021<\/p>\n

Ends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is about time the Minister took control and demonstrated some leadership The Minister for Education is missing in action as schools struggle to cope with a huge increase in the incidence of covid, according to Social Democrats Education Spokesperson Gary Gannon. \u201cOur school communities are being crushed under the pressure of covid. They are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,316,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-gary-gannon","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMinister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid - Social Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ga_IE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid - Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is about time the Minister took control and demonstrated some leadership The Minister for Education is missing in action as schools struggle to cope with a huge increase in the incidence of covid, according to Social Democrats Education Spokesperson Gary Gannon. \u201cOur school communities are being crushed under the pressure of covid. They are […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/socialdemocratsireland\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-17T09:55:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ZOO Admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SocDems\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@SocDems\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"ZOO Admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"ZOO Admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#\/schema\/person\/4aa25e1b0ecfe5e51a2ceab9a9006960\"},\"headline\":\"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-17T09:55:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/\"},\"wordCount\":314,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Education\",\"Gary Gannon\",\"Press Release\"],\"inLanguage\":\"ga-IE\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/\",\"name\":\"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid - Social Democrats\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-17T09:55:40+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"ga-IE\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"ga-IE\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg\",\"width\":1080,\"height\":1080,\"caption\":\"Gary Gannon TD\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/\",\"name\":\"Social Democrats\",\"description\":\"Change Ireland for the better\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"ga-IE\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Social Democrats\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"ga-IE\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/SocDems-logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/SocDems-logo.png\",\"width\":846,\"height\":358,\"caption\":\"The Social Democrats\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/socialdemocratsireland\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/SocDems\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#\/schema\/person\/4aa25e1b0ecfe5e51a2ceab9a9006960\",\"name\":\"ZOO Admin\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/author\/zoo-admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid - Social Democrats","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/","og_locale":"ga_IE","og_type":"article","og_title":"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid - Social Democrats","og_description":"It is about time the Minister took control and demonstrated some leadership The Minister for Education is missing in action as schools struggle to cope with a huge increase in the incidence of covid, according to Social Democrats Education Spokesperson Gary Gannon. \u201cOur school communities are being crushed under the pressure of covid. They are […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/","og_site_name":"Social Democrats","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/socialdemocratsireland","article_published_time":"2021-11-17T09:55:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1080,"height":1080,"url":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"ZOO Admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SocDems","twitter_site":"@SocDems","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"ZOO Admin","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/"},"author":{"name":"ZOO Admin","@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#\/schema\/person\/4aa25e1b0ecfe5e51a2ceab9a9006960"},"headline":"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid","datePublished":"2021-11-17T09:55:40+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/"},"wordCount":314,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg","articleSection":["Education","Gary Gannon","Press Release"],"inLanguage":"ga-IE"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/","url":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/","name":"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid - Social Democrats","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg","datePublished":"2021-11-17T09:55:40+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"ga-IE","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"ga-IE","@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Gannon.jpg","width":1080,"height":1080,"caption":"Gary Gannon TD"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/minister-for-education-missing-in-action-as-schools-struggle-to-suppress-covid\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Minister For Education Missing In Action As Schools Struggle To Suppress Covid"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/","name":"Social Democrats","description":"Change Ireland for the better","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"ga-IE"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#organization","name":"The Social Democrats","url":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"ga-IE","@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/SocDems-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/SocDems-logo.png","width":846,"height":358,"caption":"The Social Democrats"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/socialdemocratsireland","https:\/\/x.com\/SocDems"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/#\/schema\/person\/4aa25e1b0ecfe5e51a2ceab9a9006960","name":"ZOO Admin","url":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/author\/zoo-admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}