Dr. Michael Redmond:

The State needs to hold the directive model as one of its cards. The whole tradition and culture and partnership model of schools and the State working together has always been a collaborative one, right up to this morning's conversation around the leaving certificate, for example. Every aspect of Irish education is collaboratively determined. One Minister after another has stood over and maintained that approach. I would argue, as my colleague Ms O'Sullivan said, for better planning. Why are we having fire brigade meetings in Limerick and about to have another one in Cork? Why will we have the next one in Wexford and the one after that in Tipperary? I ask that in the context of planning and making provision for students with particular special needs and undertaking the required investment locally to allow the necessary building, classroom set-ups and hiring of staff. Therefore, this is really a question of planning and of the State not just leaving this issue totally up to the well-meaning and hardworking boards of management. Other than the teachers on boards, their members are not professional educators. In governance terms, boards of management are carrying a workload, a worry load and a responsibility load well beyond their capacity to cope with in future. That is where the State, at planning level, must come in to offer support and provide the required resources to reflect the needs of its people is so far as possible.