Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank the witnesses for attending. I know being principals and parents the witnesses are probably already overwhelmed, but they are here this morning advocating. It is so often the case that the people who are most overwhelmed are the ones who are battling the most.

I spoke to the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, last week about something similar to what Dr. Liston said, which is that we are in single digits for the number of children who do not have school places on paper, but in reality there might be a school place but if the services and supports are not there, the student might have to go home to get changed or because they cannot manage a full school day. That ties in with what Mr. O'Neill said regarding the lived experience not being inclusive education. He said what we are saying is that on paper this is an inclusive school or inclusive education, but this is not the reality. I have worked in the area as a behaviour support specialist for 20 years, so I often think about it.

If we take PE, art and lunch as simple places to start inclusion, we often say if the children cannot line up, cannot sit still, cannot follow the direction, or if it is a hopping exercise, they cannot hop and then they cannot take part in PE. Yet, simply being in the room with the other kids their age who are doing PE while they are doing something totally different is a version of inclusion. This is also the case in a lunch environment where a person needs help to feed themselves, but they are not being separated and having lunch in the classroom in the autism section of the school. In many schools, we have an autism class attached to a mainstream school and we call it inclusion, but actually it is not as woven through as we would like.

Most of the witnesses have spoken about the wraparound services. I would love to hear examples, especially from Corpus Christi, around what those wraparound services look like. When we had the Minister of State before the committee last week, and speaking to the Minister, Deputy McEntee, the time is now for us to inform what this new national therapy service is going to look like. We are saying we are getting therapists into schools, but they have been in schools over the years. It is about getting them back in. I was talking to the Minister of State about what is this going to look like. I had questions regarding whether it it will be one-to-one therapy outside of the classroom, whether it will be in the classroom, whether it will go to bus escorts, or whether we are going to consult on circle time because that is where the need is. What does that look like from a practical perspective in the witnesses' schools at the moment when they are doing that wraparound service? Mr. O'Neill referenced that therapy is woven into the rhythm of the school day. This is going to go into a report. What does that look like because it sounds like its best practice?