Ms Lorraine Dempsey:

On the question of review versus enact, at this stage, 17 years later, we would be required to review the sections that have not been enacted. There has been a considerable amount of policy development around the area and policy recommendations from the NCSE that are themselves sitting on shelves and have not been taken up by the Department of Education under each successive Minister. I therefore think we need a wholesale review of where we have come to over the last 17 years in terms of policy and implementation and then look back to see where are the divisions between the enacted parts of the legislation around the IEP, because a lot has changed since then. Our education system has changed since then, as have the structures of the HSE. Therefore a review would be the starting point rather than enacting something which may, 17 years later, be flawed in itself.

Notwithstanding that the Deputy mentioned that it was unusual for legislation to not be enacted, I was before the Joint Committee on Disability Matters this morning and can tell him that it is not unusual at all. There is the Disability Act 2005 and there is the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, which is not fully implemented and hopefully next year we will have the decision support service. Several items of legislation that directly impact people with disabilities, both children and adults, are not fully enacted. Our Government and our Oireachtas, our legislators, have form on this unfortunately and the EPSEN Act is not an isolated scenario at all. For people with disabilities, it feels indicative of our status in society that we do not have that legislation to support us and our children. It is not unusual.

Dr. Muldoon referred to the Disability Act. You must look at the EPSEN Act and Disability Act in parallel and what both were setting out to achieve with the different types of assessment and outcomes. Thus, it should be review first.

The question as to why the EPSEN Act has not been implemented was mentioned. I think it was a previous Minister for Education who indicated, around 2012 or 2013, that it would cost three quarters of a billion euro to fully implement the Act. Over those years, Inclusion Ireland has asked for a breakdown of costs of bringing in IEPs, the required training around them and the costs associated with delivering them, in order to let us see what it would look like in segments and for the Government to look at the full implementation.