Ms Derval McDonagh:

I thank the Deputy for raising that and that specific example of what is happening. Unfortunately, that young boy is not alone in his experience. I am sure that is being replicated across the country.

The Deputy asked what our advice is around that. There is the short-term advice about how you help and support a family, which we do every day of the week when people phone us and ask us for signposting, information, how to write letters to schools, how to phrase things, how to influence the decision-makers and all of that. We support families with that every day. There is also the piece about just building a better, more inclusive model of education. That is a long journey and a long road. Right now, that is no use to that boy who needs our help and support. We have to hope for a future where there are fewer of those children and what they experience and we build a better, more comprehensive and inclusive education model.

There is a leadership piece here as well. We have called for this. We need to see a vision from the highest levels of Government – ministerial level – around that model of inclusive education. We need to hear stories about when it works well for children. We need to encourage schools to come on that journey and schools need to trust that they will get the resources to provide the supports as well.

I am curious on that specific example and I know we cannot go into too much detail here publicly.

I am happy to take that offline as well. What is going on if the resources are there and why, if there is a school available for the child, is that not coming together? The Deputy mentioned therapeutic interventions. That should not necessarily stop a child getting a place in school just because he or she does not have a physio report. I am curious about the detail around it and maybe we can talk about that in more detail later. We need to see a bigger vision around inclusive education and we need to see it resourced properly so that other children do not fall through the cracks like that. There are multiple children like that across the country on reduced school times who have been expelled, etc. Some of that is a resource issue and some a values, cultural and attitudinal issue.