Dr. Fidelma Brady:

I agree. I can sympathise with that school and how it feels to lose a teacher. This goes back to the fact that is real and happening on the ground. Nobody is scaremongering about this. It is a fact. It has been replicated, I feel and I fear, across many schools. That fear is now being transferred on to parents. Their voice in all of this - as Mr. Harris said, the review process is questionable, at best. Children with Down Syndrome are coming into schools and literacy and numeracy is only the tip of the iceberg for them. They need more detailed input on the complex needs issue. We have to stand back and request that this be paused, if that is the correct terminology to use. We need to pause it, step back and look at this, and not just from the point of view of the budget, how much money the Department has or how much it has for this or that. We need to stand back and look at it from the point of view of the children. Mr. Harris indicated that 84% of reviews last year were not successful. That makes a joke of the whole thing. Surely schools are saying they will not bother because 84% of the reviews carried out last year were unsuccessful. It is a bad situation for schools, parents and everybody else to be in. The Department needs to stand back and look at this.