Tag Archives: MollyJane Sweeney

A WAVE of relief swept over the country last Friday with Micheál Martin announcing the roll back of most of the restrictions made necessary by the pandemic. But while he concluded it was time to be our social selves again, his message was tempered with a reality check; the pandemic is not yet over. While many people will now be putting the episode behind them, the pandemic has left turmoil in a number of sectors in society, that will not be resolved any time soon. Such as in secondary education, especially for the tens of thousands of students facing exams this year. Their preparation for these milestone exams has hardly been ideal. MollyJane Sweeney, a student at St Joseph’s Tulla, told The Champion that while she too feels a sense of relief, like most people in the country at the moment, she does not feel that this is the end of the pandemic. “Though the formal social distancing requirements and …

A CLARE representative on the Irish Second-level Students’ Union (ISSU) has stated she has “no confidence” in the government’s ability to safely reopen schools this Thursday. The ISSU said it believed the government was “rushing school leaders to put in adequate risk-mitigation measures to ensure a safe return for students”. TY Student MollyJane Sweeney said; “As a secondary school student myself, I am extremely disappointed in the Department of Education’s decision. “Of course, being a Transition Year student, I would love to be back in the classroom safely. However, I do not have confidence in the government’s decision this week. “With the amount of cases in Ireland at present, and the high positivity rate in our communities, it is inevitable that many students and teachers alike will need to isolate in the coming weeks. “Without any provisions for online schooling, students who are isolating will simply miss out on vital education. Paired with a substitution crisis, and of course the …