Ms Derval McDonagh:

It has been pointed out to Ireland by various UN committees in recent years and more recently that we are not presenting disaggregated data about disabled children's experiences in school. We are not carefully reviewing and monitoring where that investment is going and what it is leading to in terms of educational outcomes for children. It is often presented to us that these are anecdotal pieces of information we are presenting. When we go out with a survey, we are getting a large volume of responses. This is not isolated to one or two children in one or two schools. It looks like this is an experience that many disabled children are having in school, which is the lack of ambition for children. We do not have data for the educational outcomes for children who leave special schools or the educational outcomes for children who leave special classes after being in such classes for their entire education. We do not know the educational outcomes for children in mainstream education. That is a real concern for us.

We measure what we value and we value what we measure, I suppose. There is a need to be ambitious for children, but we do not see enough ambition.