Mr. Dalton Tattan:

We had considered that some form of summer provision might have been possible but we did regard it as likely to be far more modest than the proposals and what the programme has actually amounted to now. We expected that there might be nothing possible in the home environment because we felt that in the absence of the sort of advice that became available in early June it was very unlikely that teachers or SNAs would be willing to go into homes or, equally, that families would want outsiders coming into their homes in the absence of very clear advice on that. Similarly, with schools, we expected the provision to be quite limited and we were engaging with the HSE just on those with the most complex needs, which was a relatively small cohort, to provide some additional support there.

We are obviously very pleased that the advice is the way that it is. We have had some time to come with an expanded programme, and that is recognising the gap in provision that there has been. We do believe, from the response that we have got, that we will have a good programme concerning both the home and school-based aspects.