Mr. Brendan Doody:

It is disappointing to hear teachers' remarks around young people with autism. It is an indicator of how we need to progress the model of inclusion in our system. It is a deep and philosophical question to ask what we mean when we talk about an inclusive education system. I am Ireland's representative on the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education. I have quite detailed conversations with colleagues from a whole range of jurisdictions about the systems in place in their jurisdictions, how they are progressing and moving and so on. It is interesting to note that even in systems which we would regard as being far more inclusive than the Irish model, taking for example those in Portugal, Malta or Italy, the latter of which does not have special schools, it is not that children with severe or profound listening disabilities are to be found in mainstream classes, for example. That does not meet anybody's needs. Those countries retain specialist provision. Even in fully inclusive or more inclusive education systems, there are specialist provisions. They call them resource centres and not special schools but for all intents and purposes, they are special schools that are staffed by specialist teachers who are well supported by a range of therapists and others as deemed necessary.

The Deputy is correct that some parents would be fearful of a model of inclusion that would result in children with more complex special educational needs being with their peers in mainstream classes and surrounded by adult supports and so on. I do not think that is what we are talking about because that approach does not serve the purposes of the child, the teachers or the other students in the school. Whatever model of inclusion emerges must be agile and capable of responding to the individual needs of the children and young people so that the programmes in education are tailored to the needs of those children. That is important to note. Clearly, we have a way to go but as Ms Mannion said, there has been massive investment in special education in recent years. The challenge for us is to build on that. We have 20,000 teachers working in special education, most of whom did not work in special education 15 or 20 years ago. There are 20,000 special needs assistants, SNAs, and so on and so forth. There has been considerable investment in training teachers and all that type of thing. There is a lot to be built upon. That is one of the things we would bear in mind. What we would consider a model of inclusion must meet our system needs and so on.

There is another aspect of inclusion. There is sometimes a feeling abroad that all of the expertise around special education resides in special schools. There is the notion that children with additional needs have to go to special schools because that is where all the expertise remains. That is frequently true but is not always true. The policy position of the Department in respect of meeting the needs of children and young people is that where possible, they would attend mainstream provision. Where that is not possible, special classes or special schools are provided in order to assist them and meet their needs.

It is important to note that the social inclusion model, SIM, comprises constituent elements beyond the provision of therapists. The Deputy rightly referred to challenges in finding sufficient therapists. There are 39 sanctioned posts, for example, in the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, for occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. It has been difficult for those posts to be filled, possibly because they have been filled on a year-to-year basis. That may be one of the challenging issues.

We are working through a proposal at the moment that was submitted by NCSE in respect of scaling up one element of SIM. I can talk about other elements. There was a nursing element to SIM. There was an SNA element, a National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, element and a therapy element. Specifically in respect of therapy, there was a proposal that would see scaling up as a first phase. It was around the scaling up of a national therapy service to mainstream schools. We are engaging with our colleagues in the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform on that. We do not know whether we will be able to progress it but from the Department's perspective, the wind is behind that particular model. Entirely coincidentally, I happened to bump into an inspector in the office at lunchtime. She recounted that she had been in a school in rural Wicklow, one of the 75 pilot schools. She referred to the extraordinary impact of having an occupational therapist available to the school. That impact was not on the children specifically but in respect of collaborative work with the teachers as a means of building their capacity to meet the needs of the children. There was also a strong emphasis on the development of fine motor skills in a way that teachers simply would not have been prepared for or trained to do. That is the fundamental basis on which we have our speech and language classes, for example. We recognise the benefit of a co-professional relationship between teachers and therapists. There is a mutually beneficial relationship to be developed in that regard. The challenge for us is how to build the capacity of teachers more generally. Ultimately, that is our challenge.

The other elements of SIM are equally important, including additional NEPS support for schools. The committee is probably familiar with the NEPS model of service of 80% assessment and 20% capacity building. Having four additional NEPS psychologists available to schools has also proved beneficial.

The nursing pilot as originally envisaged as part of SIM has morphed. It does not look as it was proposed. It was originally proposed just for the SIM area. When we engaged with the HSE, the numbers simply were not there. We have developed that. I do not know if the committee is familiar with our nursing pilot but we have expanded it to a national focus as opposed to focusing just on SIM. When we went to the HSE, it crunched the numbers and came back to us. There are approximately 25 children in the country, according to the HSE, who require nursing supports in order to attend school. We have put in place a separate programme to progress that.