Dr. Aideen Hartney:

The Deputy is correct. It comes back to the universal design approach to provision so that we are meeting the needs of everybody, regardless of the level of need. The Deputy alluded to what we might call an Irish culture, whereby education is highly prized and, therefore, parents fight hard for it for all of their children. That may where some of the school reluctance might come from.

They know they are finely balancing resources with the cohort of the community that they are serving. That is where we were suggesting that, on this road towards more inclusive education, we will need to demonstrate proof of concept. That might involve picking a few schools where, as Dr. Tamming has said, there is already an inclusive attitude coming from the top down through the school body to pilot this inclusive approach to show how it works for all students in the locality. That will then show a direction of travel and build momentum in terms of assigning resources. There was the comprehensive employment strategy in Ireland, which did a fair bit of work on demonstrating what was necessary for that good transition planning for young learners with disabilities. That is where the research saying that planning for what a person wants to do after school should start at the age of 13 came from. It is also about access to career guidance, which has only recently been introduced to special schools, and access to things like transition year and the work placements and other social integration activities that form part of that. That is something that has not been universal for learners with additional needs to date. It is only starting to be rolled out now. We encourage more of that as the new national human rights strategy is rolled out.