Ms Catherine Kelly:

I thank the Chairman and Deputy Tully for her insightful points. I have always seen that Ireland produces fantastic policies. What we do not do very well is put these policies into practice. We do not do change management well and we need to start with zero tolerance for exclusion and to look at the standards and how we measure these, which is what we are not doing. We need to look at the beliefs and attitudes that exist around people with disabilities within the school and how we support them. Until we do that and do a piece of change management and really nail what the culture which we expect is, that change will not happen.

We also have many pilot schemes in schools. When research shows that they are very effective, however, they are never converted into programmes that just operate as part of the school system.

We have a programme that runs in Louth and in Dublin, and have very significant research that shows that these work and creates amazing outcomes for people who have an intellectual disability but they are still pilots. We are still going back every year with a begging bowl to see if we can get funding to sustain these pilots. These should be programmes now. It is not just our programme; a significant number of great programmes out there are pilots and so much time is wasted trying to get money and to find the strength to sustain them rather than letting us get on with the job that we need to do, which is actually on the ground floor.