Ms Lucinda Murrihy:

I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak today. I represent Inclusion Ireland, a national human rights organisation working for an Ireland where people with an intellectual disability live and participate equally. Today, I also speak as a parent, carrying the lived reality of my children’s experiences of our education system. From this place, where human rights and human stories meet, Inclusion Ireland’s position is clear: all children should have the real chance to go to school together. Families tell us that when schools foster belonging, safety follows, and safety unlocks learning. However, when belonging is absent, the consequences are stark. Every September, our phone lines become busy with families telling us of reasonable accommodations denied and how they are pressed, though rarely in writing, to move their children elsewhere. They tell us of children told to stay home until they can follow the rules. Families were told to make their home less secure so their child would want to attend school.

According to the wider data we gathered from families echoes these stories, only 14% of disabled children we surveyed last year were thriving in school; 27% have experienced restraint at school; 68% struggled with school rules never designed for them, yet more than half were punished for not following them. For children, the impact is life changing. School for some can feel like survival and impossibly far from ever accessing their right to a high-quality education. At times, anxiety grows so severe that parents make the only decision you would, which is to remove their child to protect their welfare. As a result, children are driven in separate taxis past their local school while others walk by, absorbing a silent message that disability does not belong in this community. No departmental data captures this reality and families are left to complain only to schools themselves, a process so unsafe that many stay silent. Children's voices are erased.

If we are serious about inclusive education, we cannot continue with a system that protects itself over children. That is why 74% of Inclusion Ireland’s members are calling for complete reform. This means stopping more of the same and codesigning a new system with disabled children, their families, disabled persons organisations, DPOs, and advocates as part of Ireland’s obligations to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC. The Department must collect and publish disaggregated national data on disabled children's experiences, including suspensions and restraints, so progress can be measured and schools held accountable. Complaints must be heard by an independent body. Policies must be neuro-affirming and just. Barriers must be dismantled so families can trust their child will be included and schools are equipped to educate all children with nationwide, in-school therapy teams, as part of that capacity.

Bias runs deep, rooted in generations who never went to school alongside disabled peers. Change requires transformational investment in training for staff and students, and a commitment that schools learn daily from disabled children who are the experts in their own difference. A reform system means belonging, not special, but the same; the same right to attend a local school; the same chance to learn alongside non-disabled peers, who learn the most important lesson of all: every human life is equal and every child belongs.