A new antigen testing programme for primary school children is to introduced from today.
Parents will receive the tests where another child in their pod is Covid positive or if there has been two or more cases in a class within a week.
Student teachers are also to start work in primary schools today to help with staffing shortages caused by the pandemic.
Meanwhile the Labour Party's calling for schools to be given assistance to help introduce mask wearing among kids, following recent NPHET.
Labour's Education Spokesperson, Aodhan O'Riordan, says sensitivity is needed.
"We need to keep our schools open, and we need to keep them safe, and in that regard NPHET advice is going to have to be followed.
"We're going to have to work with school communities so that levels of anxiety amongst are not raised unnecessarily, and also that children with special needs are catered for in this new arrangement."
