Ms Linda O'Sullivan:

In terms of the people who took part in the first 500, we were scattered across the country. It started in January during that horrendous lockdown so in some regards that was a good time to start because we were at home and we were able to get on with our studies. I do not think it impedes learning. The work of secondary school SNAs might not finish until 4 p.m. or 4.30 p.m. and then they were attending college for a lecture from 6 p.m. onwards every Tuesday. The online part throughout the lockdowns was invaluable really because they did not have to worry about coming up to UCD and getting to Belfield. UCD has done tremendous work with guest speakers etc. on autism and various modules and to be able to run it online so smoothly. I have to give credit where credit is due to UCD for that. As some of my colleagues here who are going to complete the course, or have just completed the course, have said, it really is a terrific course but I feel it should be accredited. It should have never gotten to this stage that we have the second cohort in and we are still nowhere near getting accreditation. There were no issues with it being online. It was helpful to SNAs who were working to be able to just log on. Who knows in the future if it will be face-to-face?