Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I reiterate that there has been significant investment in special needs education. It is important for all of us here to recognise that but the challenge is that children grow up very fast and we see the realities on the ground. It may take some time for things to fall into place but we have an obligation regardless to ensure that every child's needs are met. We have a constitutional obligation as well as everything else and therefore we need to ask the witnesses these questions about individual cases.

One of the requests we made was for the witnesses to talk about the EPSEN Act, which has not been covered at this stage. A number of provisions in that Act have not been commenced, despite the fact that it is on the Statute Book since 2004. From speaking to As I Am, one of the concerns is that in other jurisdictions such as the US and the UK individual education plans, IEPs, are on a statutory footing but that is not the case here. I tabled a Commencement matter on this to the Minister. I understand that from the Department's perspective that is because of a move from diagnosis to this inclusion model. However, IEPs are still being used because they are in the guidelines. The fact that is not on a statutory footing means that people do not have the same kind of recourse if their school is not putting in place proper education plans. Could the witnesses outline whether they believe that is the case because what I am hearing on the ground, certainly from As I Am, are many stories about people getting very little communication about individual education plans, which are supposed to be consultative. Are they confident that all schools are rolling these out in the same manner because leaving something in guidelines does not give people enough confidence?