Ms Derval McDonagh:

I thank the Senator for her comments. I wholeheartedly agree with her about the voice of autistic people, and representation and its importance, particularly at this committee and in other forums. The Senator made a point about children and support within the school environment. The term "handling children" is used and we should think about what that actually means. We should consider how to support children who might be distressed or in need, or who might have a barrier to overcome. The term "handling" has no place in 21st century Ireland. We are talking about children.

Inclusion Ireland has been involved over a number of years on a topic related to the points the Senator made, that is, seclusion and restraint within school environments. In 2018, we brought together a group of family members who had contacted us individually looking for support because their children were being secluded within the school or were being restrained, mechanically, chemically or physically, because they were distressed. We pulled together a report called Shining a Light on Seclusion and Restraint in Schools in Ireland. That report went to the Department of Education and we called for statutory guidance for schools around this important human rights issue. Unfortunately, no guidance, statutory or otherwise, has been published. We know that most schools support children in ways that are child-centred and focused on the child's rights but we have no way of knowing how widespread the issue of seclusion and restraint is within schools because we do not gather data and there is no need for mandatory reporting in that regard. The Senator highlighted issues around support and children returning home clearly distressed. We have no way of tracking how widespread that is or if it happening across the board.

We ran an inclusive education conference in November, in advance of which we consulted teachers and SNAs to hear their voices about what was happening in school communities. One of the top issues that came out related to training. Teachers and SNAs highlighted their own needs for training and support, including training at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Even more valuable is on-site training within schools, where teachers and SNAs get the kind of support and supervision they need to allow them to support children in ways that are rights-compliant. Teachers and SNAs themselves are calling for that training. We need to seriously consider as part of any strategy or policy how training is provided, how rights-based that training is and how we are ultimately supporting children to access their right to education is ways that are appropriate and suitable.