Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

They are very detailed and interesting answers. I thank all our guests for being with us this morning. It has been a very interesting discussion so far. I want to come back to school places. All the witnesses have mentioned forward planning. I am from the lovely county of Kildare and school places are a big issue for us there, including for special places. Every time I have met the Department and the recent Ministers, they talk about principals providing the information on school places and what is needed. Who should be providing the information for school places? I believe it is the Department. They are the ones looking at this. They know where the buildings are going and so on.

They and the NCSE have information. However, it seems that much of the emphasis comes back on the principals and schools to provide that information. Perhaps I could get a comment on that. It is huge issue in places such as Kildare.

On transfer teams, I received two phone calls this morning on this, where parents were asked to transfer teams. Ms Kelly is 100% right that it is putting much stress on parents and their children. It is just unacceptable. I think it was in appendix 4 that she submitted to us where she wrote about recruitment and retention and mentioned that this is fixable. We have nine months to get a report together. Can she give us some information on how she and the 30,000 people she represents would fix it in order that we can include something like that in our report? As I said, unfortunately, we have nine months. I repeat this and I said it to our previous guests as well - our remit is specifically in relation to autistic persons and young people. If Ms Kelly has some answers, we would love to know them. Perhaps she can expand on how we can help the retention and recruitment crisis that her union is facing at the moment.

On the SNAs, I wish to put on the record - I am sure all colleagues will agree - that SNAs do tremendous work. Mr. Pike spoke about a school nursing service. Perhaps he could expand on that. I also want to hit on July provision. It is huge for us as a committee. As I said, we have a nine-month remit and it is huge for parents and routine for their families. Where do the SNAs fit into July provision? Mr. Pike mentioned money. I know it is not all about money and I appreciate the great job that teachers do. However, there seems to be a discrepancy between what a professional teacher may get and what an SNA gets. Highlighting that is important as well.

I have two more quick questions. Mr. Duffy mentioned expanding the Disability Access Route to Education, DARE, scheme. I have many second level autistic students who want to go to third level and get involved in employment and apprenticeships perhaps at a different level as well. What does Mr. Duffy believe the expansion should be and how can our committee feed into that?

Other colleagues mentioned the school inclusion model. I am delighted to hear it is in Kildare. I would like to see the report on it as well, because we are getting very little feedback on the ground as public representatives, in fairness.

Those are my questions to start with. I might come in later on with some more.