Mr. Pat Goff:

A Chathaoirligh, Deputies and Senators, on behalf of IPNN, I welcome the opportunity to talk about the issues around the reduced timetable. I also speak as a principal who operated reduced timetables and I hold up my hand and say that. I will not repeat much of what Mr. Golden has said, because he could have been looking at my script as to the content of his.

IPPN are in favour of reduced timetables but only in very limited circumstances, be that medical or as part of an overall plan for a particular pupil and if it is of benefit to the pupil, who has to be at the centre of it. Points were raised earlier about parental consent. Every teacher and principal I know would say straight out that where the home and the school are working together, there are better outcomes. If there is not agreement there, this cannot happen.

The second point relates to the Constitution; why are principals and schools operating a system that is, in theory, against the Constitution? By and large, principals are fairly law-abiding in how they go about their work. They are faced with a dilemma on a daily basis, which is part of the problem we have. The dilemma is to balance the rights of that individual pupil and rights of the other pupils in the class. This is one of the constants we have. Some children do not operate well in a system. That is just a fact of life for those particular pupils. Yet, we insist on shoehorning them into the systems we have in schools, simply because that is the system that we are operating.

As to supports, as was mentioned earlier, as a school principal, part of the problem we have is that we cannot wait two years to get therapeutic supports. Sometimes we have special needs assistants, SNAs, who will support those pupils, but the SNA may not be the right person. We do not have the behavioural backup.

There is a new model being proposed by the NCSE which we look forward to, where there are going to be regional support teams. That might help but it will not be the be all and end all. From an IPPN point of view, the reduced timetable has to be for a very specific purpose and timeframe.

The other issue raised is that this is silent suspension. In my own time in school - and I have been 32 years as a school leader - it would have been easier for me at times to suspend a pupil than to use a reduced timetable. It is not that it is an either-or situation in the sense that putting a child on a reduced timetable was an easy way out. In fact sometimes it was a harder way out in that with the suspension, one followed one's guidelines. The National Educational Welfare Board, NEWB, guidelines were mentioned earlier and were like a bible for every school principal dealing with these issues. If most school principals could avoid suspension, they would do so at all costs, for the good and self-esteem of the pupil. These are some of the issues I have.

As to there being no official recognition of the extent of the problem, that is because nobody is asking. With the primary online database, POD, it is very easy to create an extra field and put this into it. We make returns to Tusla every year, and it would be very easy to create an extra field if we wanted.

I am not sure that the Department wants to get the figures on this. It is a dilemma that schools and principals are faced with.