Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Ms Lawlor mentioned resources and cost. To me, looking at it from the outside, if we train professionals to be able to teach and to go around to schools, I do not see that as expensive. We had Carmel and Fiacre Ryan here, and Ms Lawlor is well aware of them, but I have also seen in the local special school in my own home county, where the training has been done and was funded by the parents through fundraising, not by the State. There have been excellent results with the children who have started to learn this method. Does Ms Lawlor feel that the Government should support all methods, including RPM, as a method of communication where it has worked? We have had people in this very room where it has worked. It does work.

Any method that works should be supported to give the children that opportunity of communicating. Would Mr Lawlor’s organisation be in favour of even a trial being done in some of the schools to see how it works and what the results are? To me, it seems that it is being knocked again and again and that it is not acceptable to any organisation, yet it works.