Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not know where to begin. I was listening upstairs and I have been doing some reading over the past few weeks. I read the NCSE report last week - several hundred pages of it. I wanted to inform myself. To be fair - and I am not being facetious - we generally do a good job with education in this country. Having read that document, however, I came away thinking that a parallel educational universe also exists. I have got to know most of the witnesses over the years. Like Senator Flynn, I believe we are all, including the politicians here, advocates in our own way. That is what I feel at times when I advocate for people and families in difficult circumstances. Until Mr. Kelly's intervention, we had failed to discuss adequately - albeit it is covered in the witnesses' statements - the culpability of the Department of Health and the HSE. It is there in black and white. These two bodies have simply not provided information. I am not pointing this out to exonerate anybody in the Department, but when a State body or Department does not contribute to a process to which it should contribute, that needs to be highlighted. This has led us to the position we find ourselves in with the witnesses advocating for people. If we had adequate data, there might be less stress on people in terms of the one third of children who will potentially lose out on an allocation. I had to get this off my chest because that is the glaring thing staring us all in the face here.

As a former teacher, I have spoken to dozens of teachers, principals and special education co-ordinators over the past few weeks since this announcement was made. Many people are confused by it. I found it quite difficult to find consistency on what the problem and solution might be. It is a mess. As a Government TD, I have no problem saying that I lay the blame solely on the Department of Health. I genuinely do.

I looked at the listings that schools are given. There is an acknowledgement of the literacy, numeracy and the educational disadvantage, which I assume comes down to some geographical bias, or whatever the case may be. However, there is obviously no provision there for, say, student X having a visual impairment or student Y having some other disability. This is where I would come back to the Department of Education. Going forward, is this the next step for the Department of Education or the NCSE to have that included in the assessment? Is that what we are pushing towards? In the absence of HSE data, if that was provided, surely it would contribute towards allaying some of the fears we have heard articulated over the last few weeks. That is my general rant if anyone would like to respond to it before I get into questions.