Ms Martina Mannion:

Taking up the point Mr. Ó hAinféin made, where children are coming from an environment or home where they are immersed in their first language, whatever that is, it is the learning of a second language, whatever that is, that presents the challenges Ms Tansey talked about. It is not that we see Irish as the problem or that English is the more opaque language. The reality is that if these children are living in English-speaking homes, it is trying to learn the second language that presents an issue for those small numbers of children. With all the strategies NEPS implements, including the building of teacher capacity, we are trying to ensure teachers have the strategies to be able to intervene with those children before it becomes a problem. That is the key piece. We need to get to this before it becomes an issue so NEPS is not called in to provide more intensive supports in the schools. That is what we want to do in order to avoid these problems.