Mr. Brendan Lennon:

There are a number of students, I think in the 20s, who are deaf. Their first language is ISL. They are in mainstream settings rather than settings specifically for deaf children. I am taking those figures from the NDA report on the implementation of the ISL Act. The new scheme announced by the Minister, the ISL in-school support scheme, is really important for those children. Certainly, there has not been 20 posts appointed so some of those children are in school with very poor levels of ISL support, based on the NDA report. The sooner that is sorted out, the better.

I mentioned that we are not happy about the pace at which that scheme is being rolled out. I also want to make the point that while the NDA report said there were 77 children in the country whose first language was ISL, that seems to me to be a very low number. There is a parent in the Gallery whose son is eight years of age. He is a cochlear implant user. He speaks very well and can converse with people but, as his mum says, he learns through ISL. This is what people need to understand. If someone is going to learn something, the information has to be presented in a way that they can just hear it and take it in. They cannot be straining to lip-read somebody and understand what they are saying. Then the person's concentration is trying to figure out what they are saying with their lips instead of having their brain power and cognitive resources focused on learning. I do not know if the Department or the NCSE said that boy was an ISL user. He is a cochlear implant user. It works. He does not technically qualify for the medicalised criteria the Department outlined when the scheme was announced. Thankfully, his mum has told me he has been accepted, as it were, by the Department as an appropriate student for the scheme. He will be or is getting proper ISL support in class.