Ivana Bacik (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank our speakers for their presentations which are very useful for the committee to hear. I echo the words of others, following Mr. Harris's points, that the lack of clear timeframe for the ratification of the optional protocol is disappointing. We have all shared our concerns about that. I appreciate that it is difficult to give an exact time line but will the Secretary General say a little more about the establishment of the decisions support service, the key element in the ratification process?

I have another question on a specific issue in the work being done by the Department. I am conscious that there has been this change and a move into the children's Department from the Departments of Health and Justice and so on. All of us very much welcome that and note the need for an intersectional approach to dealing with disability rights. Where it has really come into focus for myself and others is in the area of education. There are huge issues in my own local area about access to local school places and local ASD classes for children with autism in particular. That is a huge issue in south Dublin and also in other areas. Where provision is made, it is often made at quite a distance from where children and their families live. In some cases they must be bussed or driven out of their area and are therefore missing out on a lot of social engagement locally. It seems inequitable because they may have siblings who are going to local schools and they cannot participate in them. I note that the Department is delivering the access and inclusion model in seeking to ensure meaningful participation of children with disabilities and additional needs in early years education. It is very welcome to see a focus on early years education but how can we be sure that at early years stage we do not see the same difficulty with the lack of local access to places? Is there provision for requiring local providers to ensure that children with disabilities are included? There are huge problems in schools and the process does not seem to be sufficiently robust to ensure that schools will deliver local places.

I thank everyone and to Ms Gibney for her powerful words on disability rights and treating disability matters as rights.