Mr. Aaron Mullaniff:

I thank Senator O'Loughlin. I will take the same format again and then bring my colleagues in. In terms of high-level figures, there are about 4,000 children of schoolgoing age in Ireland living with severe visual impairment and blindness. We only have that number as it is indicated on the census. That is what we are working with. We are getting to one in three. That is a national perspective and is down to our own resource shortages. That is not saying everybody needs our service but we would like to be able to offer it to everybody. That 1,300 is split up in terms of the work of the children and young persons team right across primary, post-primary and higher and further education. Within higher and further education, I mentioned that blind and vision-impaired students make up the smallest cohort. We have watched other disability groups increase their participation but last year, we saw a small fall and blind and vision-impaired students make up 1.8% of all students. That is about 233 according to the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability, AHEAD, figures. Again, we are looking at higher rates of attrition and drop-out back to the accessible curriculum. Students are going all the way through their education without their books and unfortunately, in higher and further education there are many more books, and many more courses of study. If we cannot get it right in primary school, where there is a quite rigid curriculum that does not change very often, it is a nightmare when it comes to higher and further education. We see this day in and day out.

I will speak about employment before I bring in my colleagues. The fact is that there are more blind and vision-impaired people on long-term sick leave or who are too disabled to work than there are in employment. Last month, the European Disability Forum described Ireland as leading the hall of shame, by having the lowest number of people with disabilities in employment. When we talk about one in four participating in the labour force, we know that a significant number of blind and vision-impaired people are trying to get their first job.

That piece around the idea that if some one is not working by the time he or she is 30, one is likely never to work as well, is a challenge. On the geographic role which is played by how resources are allocated across the country, from a support perspective I might bring Ms O'Dwyer in regarding the key providers, and then come back to Ms Doherty on summer provision.