Mr. Brendan Lennon:

Yes. The Department of Education, and also the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth at present, provide this technology in school situations or in a preschool setting. We have actually managed to get the Department of Education and the NCSE to change their understanding, and allow parents to bring the equipment home for children who are in primary and secondary schools.

We have been able to do that for children who are in preschool because the Department views it as equipment that still belongs to the Department and cannot be risked and brought home. Even before that, as early as six months of age, in other words, once the parent is no longer communicating with the child just on their knee and when the child starts sitting up or sitting on a high chair, for example, and the parent is doing whatever they are doing, washing the dishes or making the dinner, they can still communicate with the child during those moments. We are programmed to say "goo" and "aah" at babies and young children because we are training them in language all of the time. Not just for an hour a day or in school, but for many hours. On the home tuition scheme, the Department is saying that parents and children can learn ISL based on one hour per week. One can imagine how well a parent will learn a language if he or she is only getting one hour per week's training in it and how well he or she will be able to pass it on to their child.

Going back to the equipment, a typical example parents give is when they are in the car and their child is in the baby seat in the back. They cannot communicate with them because they have to be facing the child in order to do so. However, they can do so with the FM technology because it is the same as facing their children. In fact, it is the same as only being one foot away from their ear, so to speak.

It is crazy that the taxpayer is paying for this technology, but we are not maximising the benefits from it. Ms O'Rourke just mentioned how children come into school with linguistic delays. This is one of the quick wins we can have in terms of those children who are following an oral aural route get better opportunities to learn language at home before they go to school, like most other children.