Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I genuinely am not satisfied by that answer. We must have a fundamental overview and review of how the system interacts with parents who are completely exhausted by going to war, not just on this issue of school placements but on other issues of intervention and long waiting lists for assessment and intervention. When they finally try to get their child through the school gate, it can be hugely difficult for them.

How the SENO interacts with this whole process is a massive failing. I do not know whether it is a constitutional overhang which makes the Department so reluctant to intervene in schools; it says the management of schools because it just does not want to intervene. A huge number of families are falling through the cracks because of an inability of the Department to properly defend the child. Defending the parents' right to choose whatever school they want to which to send their child lets the schools off the hook. While the SENO may be a support, it is not working. I wish the Department would accept that. A re-analysis of the way the system is supposed to operate is genuinely a necessity in this case because the person I am speaking of, who has been waiting four years for a secondary school place, is the tip of the iceberg. These are only the people who contact their local representatives. Many of them just give up.