Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their very interesting presentations, which are very useful to the work of this committee. I particularly appreciate having Inclusion Ireland and BeLonGTo here. It will ensure that we will have more comprehensive proposals than we might otherwise have had. I was particularly interested to learn in the presentation by Inclusion Ireland that many special schools are described as primary schools, a fact I had not thought about. I was struck by Ms Lennon's comment that these students are not "eternal children". This aspect is often left out and we absolutely need to include it.

My question relates to those of the two previous questioners. It is about bringing in people from outside. Ms Treanor spoke about particular expertise. I agree with her on this and I am aware that the Foróige programme and others that come in from outside are factual and good, as referred to by Ms Keogh. I have concerns, however. I was a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. When we discussed the issue of sex education with the Department of Education and Skills, the concern was that people from outside could be brought in by a particular ethos that might not present factual information or might present it from a certain perspective. If people are to be brought in from outside, no matter how good they are, does this allow us to have other people from outside coming into other schools? If we are to have an absolutely comprehensive programme that is factual, inclusive and appropriate to deal with all kinds of issues, such as those raised by Ms Keogh, including consent, pleasure and equality, how would we ensure this happens when one brings in people from outside? Is it better to have a programme, such as the one proposed by Ms Keogh, where people come in and are clustered with a number of schools to train the teachers? Perhaps the witnesses would tease this out a little more.