Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

All going well, we may get another short contribution from everyone. I am next on the speaking roster. I thanked Mr. Browne privately. A family member of mine got a wonderful ten years of education experience in his school. It was not all books; it was gardening, musicals and all of those fabulous things that allowed the person to grow and flourish. That personal development has stood to them to this day and they are long gone out of the system. I thank Mr. Browne.

I thank Ms O'Neill for reading her letter into the record, Mr. Haran for joining us from Donegal and Ms Flanagan for bringing us around her school on the day we visited and on the day I visited subsequently.

I will home in on one point. It is 20 years since the EPSEN Act was passed and we have spent 20 years getting our heads around the work of SENOs. To raise a bugbear of mine, I would not walk down the street to any of the hospitals here in Dublin, stand at the front door and decide, with my qualifications, who gets to gain access to the emergency department, who goes up upstairs to neurology or who gets admitted. I do not have the professional skill set to do that, yet we have similar expectations of SENOs. I have treble-checked and the qualification criteria have not changed in 20 years. The entry requirement is QQI level 8, which is a bachelor's degree. That is what SENOs have. They are good people who are qualified in a certain area. Are they qualified to interpret and dismiss an educational psychological report? For years, as a teacher, we just accepted this and bemoaned it in our staffroom when these reports were thrown out or thrown back at us. It was not until a few years ago that a parent, who was legally trained, made the point that no one travelling home on a motorway would pull over at roadworks, get out of the car and tell the engineers a bridge should be built differently and no one would tell other professionals that a certain person should not get into hospital. In no professional walk of like would that happen, yet we have put SENOs in that position. SENOs do a fine job collectively but the legal point should be made that we have parents, schools, NEPS and CDNTs and we have volumes of files and reports, yet this circular will put the SENO in the position of gatekeeper for these schools. What is the witnesses' take on that?

I said at the outset that no one can be named, including SENOs. SENOs are a collective and an entity under the EPSEN Act. Do the witnesses have faith in SENOs to interpret the circular and approve the admission of a child to a school based on the evidence in front of them?