Ms Lorraine Dempsey:

Going back to what happened over the past two weeks, there were two separate meetings between the Department and educational stakeholders, including Inclusion Ireland. At the first meeting, the departmental officials stated that they would be severely restricted in what they could do and would only be allowing special schools and special classes to run the programme this year. Approximately an hour and three quarters later, the Minister was in this House stating that the programme would be opened up to all children with Down's syndrome in a very much expanded group. Whatever the communication issues were between the officials and the Minister, we are not sure. They were at least to our advantage in this instance in that we were told at the meeting the following week that the scheme was to be very much broadened out. However, as Mr. O'Connor explained, over the course of the weekend, as parents were looking at the criteria, they realised that all children with a mild to moderate intellectual disability in post-primary mainstream provision, regardless of their syndrome, were excluded.