Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I received an email today from a parent of a young lad who is in college and is deaf. Sometimes an ISL interpreter is available but sometimes there is none. When no interpreter is available, he has a note taker and that takes away his independence. I do not know whether the problem is that the college fails to make the effort to book all the time or whether it cannot get an ISL interpreter. One of her suggestions, which is something I had been following up but getting nowhere on, is to ask why ISL is not a subject in schools. It has been a recognised language since 2017. I kept being passed from the Department of Education to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, but I never got a straight answer. Someone said something else had to happen first and so forth. It should definitely be considered. Mr. Sherwin indicated, in his example of the work and access scheme, that there is a shortage of ISL interpreters. He also indicated that the scheme was not co-created and there was no proper engagement, which is a direct contravention of the UNCRPD. Departments are still not listening.

The Department of Social Protection has been before the committee and we talked about the fact that it should be talking to DPOs. We had the example of the Green Paper on Disability Reform on which no prior engagement took place. It needs to happen so that things can be formed properly from the beginning and do not have to be changed.

The witnesses said that inclusive education is important and I agree with them. It is under-resourced, however. We need buy-in from parents to send their children to mainstream schools which have a special class or autism class attached. Many parents I know will not do so, however, because there are not enough properly trained staff in the autism or special classes. One parent told me that her son regressed in the autism class.

She then enrolled him in a special school but it was not easy to get him in there. We need to get buy-in from parents, which we will not have until it is properly resourced. We need to see a lot more resources going into mainstream schools to support students with disabilities or additional needs going to those schools and not choosing to go to a special school. There is no career guidance in special schools. Has this been addressed?