Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Good evening. Will the Department paint a picture of inclusive education from its point of view? The opening statement mentioned that the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, produced a document some months ago that is being considered by the Minister. I would like to know what it looks like because the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC, both want inclusive education, but it makes some parents nervous, especially parents of children with profound or complex disabilities.

Did any consultation take place with parents or children around that or will it? I attended a the launch of a report by AsIAm yesterday, titled Exploring the School Experience of Autistic Children and Young People. The CEO of the NCSE was there. I am not sure whether anyone from the Department attended. It was interesting. Young autistic adults gave their opinions about school, what the school experience was like for them and the different challenges they come up against. Even something as simple as uniforms can present difficulties. They have sensory issues, so uniforms should not always be of one type. That should be taken into account. They talked about staff misunderstanding what autism is. Staff training on awareness and understanding of autism is extremely important. One student said a special needs assistant, SNA, told her she did not look autistic. A parent told me that she told her daughter's primary school teacher that she thought her daughter might be autistic and that she was going to have her assessed. The teacher responded: "but she speaks". That shows a clear misunderstanding of autism by people in the education sector who should know better. Will the Department expand on how it plans to roll out more understanding and awareness of disability in general and autism, in particular, as the prevalence of autism is increasing dramatically?

Does the Department see a situation in which it can move away from the expensive assessments required to get into school for children on the spectrum or children with additional needs? Those assessments are very difficult to access at the moment, and parents are paying out large amounts of money, up to €1,500, maybe €2,000, to have their children assessed just in order that they will get into an autism class or a special school and be able to access the supports they need. Without that money, parents cannot access them at the moment. Is there any way we will ever move away from that, or is there another way of doing this such that parents do not pay out so much money, especially when the children's disability network teams, CDNTs, are in what I would term disarray?

I do not want to hog the floor but I am very interested in the Department's social inclusion model. I have said that before. I know the Department says it will be rolled out. I would like the witnesses to expand on how that will be done. The Department says it will be done among the NCSE staff and support staff. From what I hear from the NCSE, the model has worked well in the schools where it has been piloted, and the biggest difficulty has been getting staff because it was a pilot scheme and, therefore, there was lack of permanency around the positions. Will that change? Will the model be properly assessed and will it be rolled out on a larger scale?

I have several other questions but I will let other Members come in. Will there be an opportunity to come back in later as well?