Eileen Flynn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach. First, I welcome all of our guests to the committee today and it is an absolute privilege to be involved with the respect for SNA campaigns, if even at a small level. Some 43 years on, we are all more open now around disabilities in Ireland. We are no longer ashamed at having a child who has a disability or want to shy away from it. I understand that the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, was in all of the newspapers looking to establish educational centres for people with additional educational needs. We know that putting the Traveller community into boxes has never worked and we also know that putting people with disabilities or with extra educational needs into such boxes does not work either.

Speaking to Ms O’Sullivan, I have a qualification but I do not see myself as someone who has completed a scheme. I completed a qualification in Ballyfermot College of Further Education for ten months, like Ms O’Sullivan did, where we studied junior growth and development, psychology, etc., and how to work with young people in an educational setting. Kathleen Noone was in charge of the course, it is still available in Ballyfermot College of Further Education and it was brilliant. I completed the course in 2010.

I went on to work in a school in Ballyfermot for nearly two years and I know I am giving myself credit in saying this but it was great to work with that young person. I was not just a carer but was also an educator, that is, someone that young person could speak to. I became an SNA because when I was ten years of age I lost my mother and a few days after that I was in an accident. I had SNAs myself from time to time when I was in bad places, although I do not usually speak about that publicly.

Times have changed in our society and we need to change with them. We need to recognise SNAs as professionals. We also need to avoid labelling young people who are assigned SNAs. We now have 19,000 SNAs in our country and we must respect them by recognising their profession. It is not an easy course to do. In terms of mainstreaming equality for young children to enable them to reach their full potential, sometimes there can be barriers in our school settings and the SNAs help to break down those barriers. I know that from personal experience.

It is the right thing to do and I urge the SNAs here not to give up hope because community development work was only recognised as a profession relatively recently. That said, I have no doubt that the witnesses will be back here next year looking for SNAs to be recognised as a profession. Unfortunately, the political will is not there yet but the witnesses have run a brilliant campaign. It is important to continue to put pressure on the Department. Of course, a review needs to be done but we need to recognise SNAs as a profession first.

If there are any outstanding comments that the witnesses would like to make on the record, they have a minute to do so. I will leave open-----