Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

I do not want to get too convoluted but there are three things I want to say. The first relates to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The committee should see that convention as the scaffolding of disabled people's public and private lives, the domestic way in which we live our lives, how we are educated and how we interact with buildings and whatever else.

I also ask the committee to please note that hundreds of Traveller children who are diagnosed to a high level as having special needs are then removed from classrooms and told to go home at 11 a.m. I ask the committee, in all fairness, what is all that about? We talk about an enriched syllabus that is supportive and challenging to all our children. I would argue that children with disabilities, regardless of their impairment or condition, need the stimulation and challenge of a robust education and a full day in school, not some notion from the 1950s that they go in for the morning and then go home. That is not on. We need to act in that regard.