Ms Moira Leydon:

The programme ran in the primary school sector mainly, but some second level schools were also involved. Unfortunately, Covid put a spanner in the works. We need to see how the programme will progress. The principle of having a multidisciplinary team available to and-or within the school is the only way forward to meet needs. We all like to refer to the concept of best practice, and it is the practical way to go, but best practice internationally is to view the child in his or her entirety. To paraphrase the Ombudsman for Children, who has always made this point, the child is not just the learner. When the child goes home, he or she is not just the kid at play. When the child goes to the therapist, he or she is not just the person receiving speech and language therapy or whatever. The child is the whole child in the school setting. Therefore, the services must come to the child. This is the optimum model of service delivery, particularly for students – we are discussing a minority, lest the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform get the heebie-jeebies – with very significant needs and who require access to therapeutic services and so on.

We endorse the principle of the project. Covid hampered it, so we need to extend the timeframe. What would be demoralising for the system as a whole would be to do what we always seem to do in Ireland. We might have fantastic pilot projects, but good reports on them sit on shelves for ten years and, by the time there is the political will to implement some of their recommendations, the situation has changed. The five-year-old who needed all of that support has become the 15-year-old, who has not had the affirmative and life-changing experiences that he or she could have had. The project's principle is fine, but we need more evidence. We also need a commitment to a timeline for bringing it to the wider education system.