Mr. Bernard O'Regan:

Thank you Chairman. Please remind me if I miss anything. Workforce planning is led by our human resources, HR, section but none of us here works in that area. In fairness, what I would suggest is that HR would send a note to the committee. As far as I know, they have made representations, although they may not be adequate. Given that they are not here, I will ask that they send a briefing note to the committee on what has been done. In that way the committee will at least be aware of what steps have been taken.

We have raised the issue of the Disability Act at the Joint Committee on Disability Matters and the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth previously. The feedback we have received is that any review of that Act where the perception would be that it is being driven by an attempt by the HSE to wriggle out of its current legal responsibilities would be very challenging and contentious. In fairness to ourselves, that is not what we are suggesting. What we are suggesting is an enhancement of the Act so that it incorporates a right to services as well as a right to assessment and that will not make it easier for us. In terms of the kinds of issues that we are already facing, having a legal requirement around them does not make it any easier to implement than where we are at today but it does equalise the importance of intervention and the assessment.

The school inclusion model, on which Ms O'Kelly might want to comment further, was designed to focus on supporting a child to be able to access the curriculum. That was its primary focus. In some respects, it had quite a narrow orientation but we know that many children that we support have needs that go beyond, but also include, accessing the curriculum. It is not the case that there is any tension between us or a row going on. Rather, there is a debate to be had about the right direction in which to go.

Our view is having a model that takes account the child in all its environments is important and that includes access to the curriculum. That does not take away from the potential for staff to work in special schools. The 104 schools versus 136 is purely a function of an agreement with Government to address the change that those schools that had access to a service prior to reconfiguration would be addressed first. I expect that at some point in time, Government will engage on the other schools. To be honest, adding more today will not make it deliver any faster than we are able to go at the moment but the 104 is directly related to the schools that had access to services being delivered in the school prior to reconfiguration. It was purely a function of that. Again, I need to highlight that even since then the increased number of special classes and the number of children who are also accessing mainstream school has also continued to grow, even in the past number of years, and they are not included in that figure either.

I have probably missed some questions and I am sorry.