Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses from Inclusion Ireland for their presentations. I was really impressed with Mr. Egan's opening statement, in which he said: "Some parents noted that their child presents with behaviours that can be challenging or he or she has poor attention skills which require the support of a skilled teacher." That sums up everything we have been discussing over the past number of years.

I have done a bit of work around autism provision and with parents of children with autism. How I came to that was because of the number of people, year on year, who contact us because they cannot get an ASD school place for their child, or an assessment, a particular therapy or school transport. I came to the conclusion, long before Covid ever was here, that there is a two-tier education system, whether or not people want to admit it. It should not be the case but it is. If a child has an additional need, he or she is basically a second-class citizen in the education system. That is a very sorry thing to have to say but it has been my experience from dealing with the parents in question. That is not to take away from the very good schools and very good teachers who do a huge amount of good work in this area. The expectation that a child with an additional need can wait forever for a school place or that it is okay for a child to have to be driven for two hours to and from school every single day is not acceptable.

When one is among the last to speak in debates like this, many issues have already been covered, but I have several questions for the witnesses. They note in their submission that the National Council for Special Education previously expressed concern about the scheme being open to challenge on equal status grounds. I do not think anybody should have to take that case but we have seen over the years in this country that it sometimes take a court case to get people to wake up. I know it is a different thing but if we look at CervicalCheck, for example, I often wonder whether we would ever have heard about what happened there if the matter had not been brought before the courts.

Has Inclusion Ireland ever given consideration to that? I accept that cost would be an issue and it is not something it should have to do, but I would welcome the opinions of the witnesses on that first.