Andrew Doyle,TD Minister of State for Food, Forestry & Horticulture

Minister for State, Andrew Doyle would like to extend his sincere thanks to all front line staff who helped keep the people of Wicklow safe during Storm Ophelia.

Minister Doyle said: “This is the first time that a status red warning was ever issued by Met Eireann; I thank all the emergency services for responding to calls for assistance from the public on Monday and Tuesday.

“Wicklow County Council Severe Weather Co-ordination Group kept residents updated on social media platforms regarding road closures and deployed crews to reopen roads.

“All our emergency services, the HSE, volunteers, the Gardaí, Wicklow County Council, Civil Defence, ESB, RNLI, and Wicklow Fire Brigade played their part.

“I commend the crews who were working around the clock to clear fallen trees blocking or partially blocking national and regional roads in Wicklow and a large number of electricity lines.

“There were a number of power cuts throughout the county and I am pleased that most of these outages have now been restored.

“All the agencies in Wicklow worked together to manage their services in order for this storm to have the least impact on residents.

“Thankfully no one was injured in Wicklow and I really believe this is down to residents adhering to the requests to staying indoors.

“Wicklow did not suffer any major infrastructural damage. The full resources of the state will be deployed for the clean-up action.

“While Wicklow escaped the worst of the storm damage, we need to see what lessons can be learned from storm Ophelia, to ensure we are as prepared as we can be for the next major weather event.

Minister of State for Agriculture, Andrew Doyle T.D. today welcomed the announcement that 2 Wicklow schools, St Kevin’s Community College in Dunlavin and Bray School Project will be participating in the trial of the Digital Learning Framework for schools.

The Framework provides a roadmap to help schools manage the transformation of teaching and learning as a result of new digital technologies. It   will help schools and individual teachers to plan and upskill in order to realise the potential of digital technologies.

The results of this trial will help the Department understand what supports will be required by schools and teachers at all levels to embed digital technologies into teaching and learning. The trial will also help refine the Framework so that it can best assist schools to realise the potential of digital technologies.

Once learnings from the trial have been incorporated into the framework, the framework will be refined and fully implemented across all schools and teacher education programs.

Minister Doyle noted “The level of interest shown in the trial of the Digital Learning Framework demonstrates the commitment that there is among our educators and school leaders to fully utilise digital technologies in their practice, to make it a seamless part of students’ learning.

“We understand that meaningful integration of digital technologies can be challenging to achieve and that schools need guidance and support to achieve it. All too often schools are not clear as to what that integration looks like and therefore are unsure how they can achieve it.

“The Digital Learning Framework resource gives greater clarity around that concept, and provides a lens for how digital technologies can be used to support and enhance teaching, learning and assessment in schools.