Ms Martina Mannion:

I will come in on the Deputy's point. On the challenges he has described for that particular parent, obviously nobody in the Department or the NCSE wants to hear of a parent having those kinds of experiences. The Department and the NCSE have put huge resources and supports into ensuring that children can access appropriate placements by making available those resources and supports. Where we have had those particular challenges, we have had to resort to legislation to ensure we could enforce those rights for those children.

Separate to the legislation we have pointed to in relation to the section 37 process, parents who are refused enrolment of a child in school can have access to the section 29 appeal process under the Education Act. They can bring that process through to conclusion, which will ensure that if a school is making unreasonable objections to taking in a child with special educational needs, it would not be acceptable to a section 29 appeal committee when the Department's resources and supports are given to a school at the scale we have outlined in order to support children in those school placements.

The practice across the Department and the NCSE has been wholly in the supportive space of ensuring that schools do not put barriers in place. They are being provided with a level of teaching resources, SNA support and guidance that allows them to take in these children. There is then a process whereby the Department supports parents in choosing a school placement for their child. The Department is there to help them through the processes to ensure they can access the placement. Clearly, we do not want to hear of cases where this is not working and we will work through, as Ms McGrath has said, individual cases. Across the system, that is not the experience because children are accessing school placements and the level and volume of increase in special class, special school and mainstream supports to children is evidence that the process, generally, is working. We do not want specific cases where it is not working for people, and we will work with members on those.