Professor Áine Hyland:

I will be very quick. I was asked what I would do if I was the Minister. The first thing to remember is that the Minister and the Department have access to an enormous amount of money. Money is a great leverager. We know that it leverages change. Over the years, the various budgets the Department has had has given it much more power and authority to achieve change if it needs to. It is not acceptable that there are not special classes or special supports for children who receive very good support at primary level but, when they turn 12 or 13, have nowhere to go. The Department simply has to take action on that. That would be my number one priority at present. It is more than 100 years ago since places were available in schools for children who did not have difficulties. In fact, they would be prosecuted for not going to school. Here, we have children who want to go to school but cannot go. I feel very strongly about that issue. I am talking about 26 second level schools in Dublin 2, Dublin 4, Dublin 6, Dublin 6W and Dublin 8, where not a single one of them will agree to start a special class. I agree with the Chairman that it should be voluntary, there should be a lot of support for them and we should not be forcing them. However, if it comes to it, I am afraid we have to do it. That is my first point.

With regard to the financial side, I make the committee aware that there is €1.5 billion, as was pointed out, for special needs education. That has been a fantastic development in the past 20 years. That has all happened within a 20 to 25 year period. We make a lot of noise about DEIS. In its totality, including school completion and home-school community liaison, DEIS only has a budget of €125 million. That is one twelfth of what is available for special needs education. I am not comparing them, but I am just saying that there is a lot of sound and noise about DEIS as if there is a huge budget going to the 20% of schools it goes to. It is actually not a huge budget. It is quite a small amount of money. The point was made earlier on by a member of the committee that Ireland has a very low proportion of its overall budget going to education. I am sure that has come up at the committee on a number of occasions.

Senator Ruane's point about streaming in DEIS schools has been highlighted by the ESRI. It has highlighted that it is almost unique to DEIS schools now. I would simply withdraw money from the schools in the morning if they persist in streaming. They have had numerous circulars. Circulars can mean nothing or everything. If I were the Department, I would make it a condition of the funding that there is no streaming. Almost none of the non-DEIS schools stream now. However, we know that many of the DEIS schools are doing it. Ironically, exactly as the Senator said, they are discouraging students from doing higher level papers in the senior cycle. There are some DEIS schools in which no STEM subject is being offered at higher level. That is a huge insult to the pupils and the families in their area.