Ms Debbie O'Neill:

I will answer that. We have had no engagement. We have done a lot of media engagement on this over the past while and, despite the Minister saying there would be engagement with us, there has not been any. This is not a new thing. Redesignation has not so much been threatened – "threatened" is not the right word – but mentioned a lot over the past few years without there being an understanding of who we are and what we do. Narrow designation is referred to a lot. We have proven in our statement that our designation is the broadest that exists. If we were to expand it any more, we would be diluting the whole spectrum of provision on offer. In this day and age, we should be able to keep something that is working and build for the future for those who do not have a place yet. Make no mistake: if redesignation happens, while the children we have at the moment will not be forced back into mainstream education, those children we are yet to meet most definitely will. There are no special classes in mainstream education left for children with mild cases. There are 49 in the country. There were 50 but the CBS in Nenagh has just been refused permission to keep its one. There are 49 mild intellectual disability classes in mainstream schools across the country, so we do not know where our cohort will go.