Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I wish the witnesses a good morning and thank them for their fantastic opening statements. I have four questions and seven minutes. Let us see how we do.

I have a thought to start with. I loved Ms O'Rourke's description of including the voice of a child through pictures and other ways. It struck me that, yes, we need the disability voices but another piece of this puzzle might also be including the neurotypical voices of children, especially in mainstream classes, which have become so diverse. They might also have a good opinion as to what a great system would look like and how to integrate. They are often the best experts because they are growing up with this.

Ms Lawlor and Ms Mortell both spoke about embedding therapists within the school environment and the classroom routines. I think all the witnesses spoke about that. If I was to give them a magic wand, with no budgetary or resource constraints, what would the perfect roll-out of this pilot programme of therapies in schools look like? It is great to hear that the witnesses had that early engagement. I do not think some of the principals have had that yet. I am conscious that we are currently hiring, or trying to hire, therapists but we do not necessarily have the policy or the job description down yet. As a behavioural consultant who was in and out of schools, I would see it as a support in the classroom, assisting at maths time, circle time or PE time but then also at one-to-one sessions outside the classroom, and being in the schoolyard trying to support socialisation. We often see a drop in support at lunchtime when staff have to eat. I refer to prioritisation of classroom and one-to-one rather than socialisation, which is sometimes key to surviving, especially when kids often get reduced hours or suspensions because a lot of difficulties happen at break times. I would also see it as supporting our bus escorts, who are sometimes acting on a wing and a prayer to get kids to and from school on long journeys without distressed behaviours. There is also the home liaison piece, which is so important for wrapping around the parents and, of course, liaising with the HSE and the CDNT.

I am happy to hear the witnesses have had the engagement but I am not yet confident we have a good format for this pilot programme.

I would hate to see it start to roll out, fail and then not be delivered to more than 45 special schools and into mainstream schools. If the witnesses had a magic wand, what would they do? Perhaps we will start with Dr. O'Rourke and move along.