Ms Anna Shakespeare:

I am limited in what I can respond to in the context of the Pobal programme implementation. The Deputy is dead right. The access and inclusion model has been transformational for children between the ages of two and five and their participation in ordinary preschool settings with their non-disabled peers. They get the opportunity to develop friends, something they might not have been in a position to do, particularly when we consider a child with multiple disabilities or life-limiting conditions. The programme enables the preschool not only to accommodate the child but to have the child participate in activities through therapeutic supports, equipment, or upskilling of the teacher. It is a critical success factor for active participation for a child from the time of their first social experiences.

The Deputy's question is about how we keep that thread going through primary, secondary and tertiary education and into the employment piece. I will take it back. I think we have some really good examples of good practice, for example where we might have some SNA supports. We have people now being included in mainstream educational environments. There is much more inclusion. We are speaking about people who are neurodiverse and their inclusion in mainstream education, all those accommodations, and further and higher education making accommodation in the context of accessibility. However, on that golden thread being pulled through, as we say in the notes to the committee at the end, it goes back to Deputy Stanton's point about responsibility for the co-ordination. It cannot rest with one Department, in Pobal's view. That would certainly be our observation. There are different pockets of brilliance in terms of policy implementation. As a nation we have a really strong set of policies. Where we sometimes fall down is joining the dots from a funding perspective and supporting Departments from a policy perspective to thread their policies together.