Ms Elaine Grehan:

I would like to add one more thing about the HSE and the pathways for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. We have a working group set up in 2019 with people who have been involved in speech therapy, cochlear implants and different kinds of medical interventions. Later, the IDS was asked to be involved in the group. We read through the documents and there was no mention of ISL. We said it was very important that parents have knowledge of the deaf community and that they know about ISL. Of course they should know about the other options that may be available like speech therapy and cochlear implants, but it is important that ISL is there from day one, when the baby is diagnosed. People will say there is the ISL home tuition programme, but they do not seem to understand ISL is a language and we need to give those resources and that access from day one. It is not just something we can add on at some point. It is important that access is there. It can be quite difficult when one is trying to work with that kind of attitude and that is what you are met with. It would be better if we all worked together from day one. It can be quite difficult to change that kind of attitude and to try to make ISL a priority much later.