Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 19 March 2026
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth
Special Education Provision: Discussion
2:00 am
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Apologies have been received in advance of the meeting from Deputy Currie and Senator Curley.
Everyone is very welcome. I ask those attending remotely to mute their microphones when not contributing so that we do not pick up any background noise or feedback. As usual, I remind all those in attendance to ensure their mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off entirely.
Members attending remotely are reminded of the constitutional requirement that, in order to participate in public meetings, they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex.
As the witnesses are within the precincts of Leinster House, they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of any presentations they make to this committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside the Houses of the Oireachtas, or an official of the Houses, either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.
The agenda for today's meeting is the provision of special education. I warmly welcome the following witnesses: Dr. Fidelma Brady, head of education with Down Syndrome Ireland; Ms Derval McDonagh, CEO of Inclusion Ireland; Mr. Adam Harris, CEO of AsIAm; and Ms Emily McPhillips-Sheridan, advocate.
I call the witnesses to make their opening statements in the following order: Dr. Brady, followed by Ms McDonagh, Mr. Harris and then Ms McPhillips-Sheridan. They will have five minutes each.
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
On behalf of all members of Down Syndrome Ireland, I would like to thank the Cathaoirleach, Deputy Crowe, and the rest of the joint committee for the invitation to join them today. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Aidan Stacey, CEO of Down Syndrome Ireland, who is with us in the Public Gallery.
All children and students with Down's syndrome deserve access to high-quality education. We want to ensure that they can reach their full potential by consistently placing an emphasis on ensuring that they are fully supported and accessing the supports they need. Developing a submission recently to inform the forthcoming convention on education gave our members the opportunity to highlight both what was and was not working in special education and to outline the kind of education system they felt would be necessary in the years ahead. Members were generally positive on what was working well, highlighting inclusive education, special needs assistant, SNA, support, etc. Looking at what was not working, though, members emphasised gaps in support and resources and the need for improved mainstream school inclusion, better teacher training, increased SNA support and therapy, and more special class availability.
Looking specifically at special class availability and placement, we in Down Syndrome Ireland continue to hear from families struggling to secure appropriate school placements for their children. Students with Down's syndrome require a range of class settings, from mild to moderate and from severe to profound, in addition to specific speech and language disorder classes or multiple disabilities classes. However, in many parts of the country, these options simply are not there. To give committee members an idea, for 2026 and 2027, special classes at the primary stage for children with Down's syndrome will account for 6% of total special classes, or 167. By comparison, classes for autism, autistic spectrum and autism spectrum disorder, ASD, early intervention will number 93% of total classes, or 2,684. It is a similar picture at the post-primary stage, with 7% of total special classes being for children with Down's syndrome compared to 92% of special classes for students with autism. As a result, families are often left facing limited choices, long journeys to school and placements that do not adequately meet their children's needs. This pattern reflects a continued concentration of provision in one category of support despite the fact that students across the country present with a wide range of learning needs.
The education therapy service, ETS, and the speech and language therapy services are also a big issue for students and children with Down's syndrome. We certainly welcome the establishment of the education therapy service and acknowledge the invitation to participate in the education therapy service consultative forum, which will ensure that the necessity for children with Down's syndrome to avail of therapies in schools will be represented in all discussions going forward.
SNA staffing is another issue we face. We of course welcome the decision to pause the recent review. We will continue to work to ensure that SNA supports are protected in both policy and practice. We will also be advocating for the widening of the scope of SNA support. The current criteria are restrictive and do not take into account of the need to have the right form of support in place to meet the range of individual needs.
An additional issue that we in Down Syndrome Ireland face is the fact we do not have data on the number of children and students with Down's syndrome currently enrolled in schools. Why are we not gathering better data on the number of pupils with Down's syndrome in our schools? Unfortunately, this data is not collected. Data is collected on just one aspect of our syndrome, namely, the presence of a mild, moderate, or severe-to-profound intellectual disability. There is no mention in the data available of students with Down's syndrome.
We do not have the data. Exactly how many children with Down's syndrome are enrolled in schools this year is unknown. If we knew that, we could better support them.
What will be needed in the years ahead? Members' feedback, when they were preparing our submission for the convention on education, underscores the desire for a well-resourced, individualised system that balances inclusion with adaptations and accommodations for children and students with Down's syndrome. Children with Down's syndrome deserve access to high-quality education with the right supports in the right setting at the right time. Ensuring that the education system of the future provides a well-resourced individualised system that balances inclusion with adaptations and accommodation is essential to making that a reality for all.
Ms Derval McDonagh:
I thank the Cathaoirleach, Deputies and Senators for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. I am here on behalf of Inclusion Ireland, a national human rights organisation working for an Ireland where people with intellectual disabilities are fully included and participate equally in every part of life. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Gáibhin McGranaghan, who is in the Gallery.
Our evidence today is grounded in the experiences of children with intellectual disabilities and their families, including many children with intersecting needs. The committee has identified several important issues, including the assessment of need, AON, review; the special needs assistant, SNA, allocation; special education teacher allocations; and school places. From Inclusion Ireland’s perspective, these issues are all closely connected and should not be viewed in isolation from one another. Whether the issue is an assessment, a support or a school place, families and children often encounter the same experience: delay, uncertainty and having to fight for what should already be in place.
Our starting point is simple: every child should be able to access their local school with their siblings and peers and with the support they need. For children with intellectual disabilities, that means every school understanding their obligation and responsibility to include all children and being equipped to support children’s communication, participation and real access to learning. What we would love to see is a change in narrative from inclusion as a burden to inclusion as an opportunity for every school and every child. Children who learn alongside one another learn to understand and respect difference. We cannot hope for an inclusive society if we do not build inclusive schools.
Families tell us that inclusion is not an abstract concept. They define it as belonging, being safe, respected, understood and able to participate. One parent told us recently that the school would have to believe they belong and that a child feeling safe is not the result of a one-size-fits-all attitude. That is the standard against which the system should be judged.
In our submission to the national conversation on education, informed by a nationwide survey of families of children with intellectual disabilities, 39.4% said their child’s distress or communication was dismissed, 37.9% said family concerns were dismissed and 32% reported that reasonable accommodations were refused or significantly delayed. Only 38% said their child was always or often treated as a valued and respected member of the school community. Those figures matter because they show not only whether support exists somewhere in the system, but whether children with intellectual disabilities are believed, accommodated and enabled to participate as should be their right.
Children and families are hearing more about inclusion, but many still do not experience it in practice. This is why Inclusion Ireland believes the debate cannot stop at whether a child has an AON, whether a school has an SNA allocation or whether a special class or special school place can be found. These issues really matter, but they are not enough on their own. The deeper issue is whether Ireland is building an education system that includes children with intellectual disabilities as a matter of right or whether families are still being asked to navigate a patchwork of workarounds.
We know that some schools are doing phenomenal work to include all children. Those schools see it as a matter of principle. It is in their DNA. It is what they believe makes their school community a better one. Those schools are living and breathing the values they profess. However, it should not come down to individual school leadership and the postcode lottery of whether your local schools get inclusion or not. As our head of strategy and innovation, Ms Lucinda Murrihy, put it in her recent article for The Journal: "Inclusion should not depend on finding the right school. It should be the defining characteristic of every school."
Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, requires Ireland to move towards an inclusive education system. That same direction is reflected in the national human rights strategy for disabled people and in the wider reform agenda across education and disability policy. The question is whether the next phase of reform will be strong enough, clear enough and accountable enough to make a tangible difference for children and families. That is why Inclusion Ireland is calling for a statutory, costed inclusive education plan. For us, that plan should do three things. First, it should create clear entitlements so that children are not left with an assessment but no meaningful route to support. Full commencement and reform of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act and the Disability Act must be aligned so that families are not left moving between separate systems that each point elsewhere. Second, it should place a clear duty on the Government to deliver inclusive education in every school, with time-bound milestones, named responsibilities and proper cross-departmental co-ordination. Schools cannot be inclusive in practice if communication supports, assistive technology, therapies and other essential supports remain too difficult to access. Third, it should create real accountability. That means accessible routes for children and families to raise concerns independently, publishing disaggregated data on children's experiences and outcomes, and measuring whether children feel safe, respected and able to participate.
Our wider 1,000 voices survey from last summer heard the same message. Families judge progress by whether support is in place when their child needs it, whether their child is welcome in school and whether they can plan with confidence instead of constantly firefighting. We know from our work that the cost of inaction is felt in children’s anxiety, missed learning, exclusion from peers, communication needs going unmet and families worn down by constant advocacy. For children with intellectual disabilities, the damage caused by delay and low expectations can be profound and long-lasting.
Our message to the committee is this: Ireland does not need more of the same. It needs a clear commitment that inclusive education will no longer depend on luck, local variation or how hard a family can fight. Every child should have the chance to learn, participate and belong in school. Every school should be supported and expected to move towards making that real. The next phase of reform must be ambitious enough to match both Ireland’s human rights obligations and the Government’s own stated commitments. I thank the committee, and I look forward to members' questions.
Mr. Adam Harris:
On behalf of AsIAm, Ireland’s autism charity, I thank the committee for its invitation to participate in this important and timely discussion. In recent weeks, autistic children and families across Ireland have experienced significant and unnecessary worry and anxiety about access to SNA support for the 2026-27 academic year. SNA support can make a critical difference for so many autistic children. I can attest to this personally. I would not hesitate to say that I would have never had the opportunity to transition from a special school to a mainstream classroom in my local community, nor the opportunity to progress independently to secondary school, without the support of my incredible SNA of five years, Ms Jennifer Wilkin, who remains an important part of my life to this day. While AsIAm welcomes the subsequent decision to pause the proposed changes to SNA provision, in truth this really just defers the anxiety felt by our community or indeed leaves it hanging over so many children and families.
From our perspective, this situation highlights a deeper concern: a lack of understanding or appreciation of the specific additional care and support needs of autistic children in the classroom. There is a particular irony here. The supports that our families would place the greatest value on, including assistance with executive functioning and task management, support with emotional regulation and the provision of critical emotional support and advocacy within the classroom, are not seen by the Department as grounds for providing this vital SNA support. We have lived in a space of "Don't ask, don't tell" for far too long on this issue. The circular governing the role of the SNA must be fully updated, in consultation with disabled people, to ensure it properly recognises and resources the identified additional care needs of autistic students. This should be fundamental to an inclusive education model and experience.
Under Article 24 of the UNCRPD, supported by General Comment No. 4, all disabled people, including autistic children, have a right to reasonable accommodations and individualised supports to access an inclusive education.
In a wider sense, this recent and preventable crisis is symptomatic of a wider series of deeper issues concerning how the education system plans and communicates with our community. Indeed, in the past six months alone, families have faced uncertainty about the access and availability of autism classes amid ad hoc announcements of classes across the country, as well as an entirely confusing announcement prior to Christmas, in the context of proposed changes to the Disability Act, which suggested potential reforms to both enrolment criteria and designation of autism classes and special schools.
Similarly, the EPSEN plan, which was published on foot of a review of the EPSEN Act last June, has yet to be accompanied by an implementation plan, leaving families without clarity on how its recommendations will be realised in practice. Just this week, we saw through a freedom of information request the publication of data on restraint of autistic students in our schools, whereas we should have seen a quarterly report from the Department far earlier.
As we look ahead to September, there are still autistic children who do not know where they will go to school. We must stop limping from crisis to crisis or taking a piecemeal approach to our vision for an inclusive education system. Ireland has already developed numerous policy reviews, roadmaps, frameworks and legislative proposals. We now must get on with the business of implementation, strategic planning and decision-making for tomorrow.
Reflecting these concerns, I urge the committee to consider the following priorities. Children and families are tired of being the last to be consulted or told about policy or resourcing decisions that fundamentally affect their lives. As we move forward, the Department must not focus on quick-fix industrial relations issues but rather on how resourcing decisions will affect those whom the Oireachtas voted resources for. Furthermore, we are deeply concerned that the Department does not have an effective strategy for communicating with our community on such issues. If we are serious about inclusion and realising our vision for an inclusive education system, trust must be built from the ground up.
We are living in a period of widespread misinformation about autism. At the same time, thankfully, we have improved our knowledge and understanding of autism, which means we are better able to identify autistic children. Shifting demographics in our community should lead to more concerted policy responses, including increased investment in training, targeted supports and ensuring school-based policies meet the needs of autistic children. This should not mean undermining the value of autistic identity or adopting a one-size-fits-all policy that does little to protect the rights of autistic students.
We need a review of the full range of supports available to support autistic children in school. In AsIAm, we are very clear about how important the role of SNAs is in the lives of autistic young people. However, we are equally clear about the broader gaps in classroom supports. These include access to therapeutic supports, assistive technology and additional teaching time and appropriate training for teachers. We also need to recognise that our children and young people should have clarity and certainty about access to supports that work for them and not face a reality of losing support because they are working.
It is a sad state of affairs that, due to the failure in appropriate planning, the debate every year focuses on whether autistic children can access a school place at all. Access to a school place is vital, but having access alone does not mean that an autistic child is included. We must create a space in our discourse and policy-making to also consider how we deploy existing resources and the role of school culture, leadership and practice.
Within the current discourse, there have, at times, been attempts to suggest that placing an importance on the identification of autism was somehow not in keeping with a needs-based approach. Our observation is that while needs-based approaches are appropriate, they are not where our system has evolved to. It is neither a rights-based nor a needs-based approach, but a resource-based approach. This resource-based approach means children, regardless of whether they have a diagnosis, are often not supported based on need but on available funding. In a country in which there is a constitutional right to access an appropriate education, this is simply unacceptable.
I will conclude by recognising that we are now in mid-March and rapidly approaching the final term of the school year for our primary and secondary school students. Autistic young people require the most time to prepare for a transition to a new school but often receive the least support or certainty. Many families still do not know whether their children will have appropriate school places this September. We urge the committee to seek urgent clarity for these families.
We appreciate the opportunity to contribute today and look forward to the committee's questions.
Ms Emily McPhillips-Sheridan:
I thank the committee for inviting me to speak before it today. I am a 21-year-old autistic advocate, a social care student, and someone who has spent many years of my young life thus far speaking up for a better world for people, especially autistic people. I have always been very passionate about education and I speak up a lot about my experiences as an autistic person in Ireland’s education system, and about the ways our education system can unfortunately present barriers to our community. I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak to the committee today and to be joined by fellow advocates from the disability community.
Today, I do not just represent myself but, importantly, I try to represent my community, while acknowledging our differences and individuality. I am here because I know first hand how education shapes the lives of autistic students. When the right supports are in place, autistic students can thrive and reach their full potential. I know this not only my experience, but from connecting with many people in my community. However, when these vital educational supports are not a reality or if they are delayed, the consequences can be significant. A lack of educational supports can affect mental health, well-being, educational experiences and future opportunities.
Through my advocacy work and through speaking to many autistic people and families across Ireland, I consistently hear the same concerns. Many children and young people are struggling to access appropriate supports, particularly in areas such as timely educational assessments, special education teaching support resources such as learning support hours or special education teaching, SET, and SNA access. I am also aware of children and young people in need of assistive technology, who are waiting many months for it to support them to access their educational rights. For many families, children, young people and adults, accessing support can feel like a constant battle. Parents and young people often have to advocate tirelessly just to secure the most basic accommodations for children and young people.
Students can feel misunderstood, excluded or overwhelmed in environments that are not designed with neurodiversity in mind. I know what this is like, having been an autistic person who navigated the school system from the age of 4 right up to doing my leaving certificate examination at the age of 19. It is important to remember that autism is not something that needs to be fixed and the supports should reflect this. There needs to be long-term support provision. Autistic people have strengths, perspectives and abilities that enrich our communities. However, the education system must recognise that autistic students experience the world differently and may require adjustments and an array of supports to learn to the best of our ability. Changes that may seem small can make a significant difference. This includes, very importantly, a stronger emphasis on listening to the voices of autistic students. This is somewhat reflected in our Constitution, with the amendment for children's rights. Changes that can also make a significant difference in our education system include sensory-friendly classrooms; mandatory teacher training on experiences of neurodivergent and disabled children and young people; timely access to special educational supports, including SNA access; and an appropriate education place in mainstream education with supports, a special class or a special school.
When neurodivergent and disabled students are supported in a respectful and understanding way, there is so much space for progression and a better quality of life. However, when the system fails our neurodivergent and disabled communities, we risk losing potential and causing unnecessary distress. It is essential that autistic voices be included in conversations about education policy. Too often, decisions about autism classes and cuts to SNA access are made without input from the people who are directly affected. Lived experience should be valued, respected and given the time to be heard and listened to.
As someone who has navigated education as an autistic person and who now advocates strongly and is studying to become a social care worker, I strongly believe that positive change is possible. Ireland has the opportunity to create an education system that truly supports and embraces neurodiversity, creating a country where autistic students feel understood, supported, listened to and valued. My hope today is that by sharing these perspectives, I can contribute in some small way to improving the experiences of current and future students. I did not get an autism class place until sixth year and I know the impact that had on me. I would not be where I am today without it.
I again thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today. I look forward to engaging with members' questions.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We will open up to members' questions now. Today we will have six minutes per member. There will probably be an overrun of about 30 seconds. The witnesses might occasionally hear the tapping of the glass. It just means the member or witness should conclude. At the end, witnesses will be given a few minutes. Unfortunately, with the way the discussion goes over and back, there may be questions that they frustratingly are not able to answer fully, so we will give them some time at the end to close out on some of those. We will begin with Deputy O'Rourke.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all the witnesses. We have heard from a lot of witnesses at different stages and there is a lot of commonality in the analysis. We heard from the Department about the review of the EPSEN Act and the 2024 policy recommendations by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, and it says it is developing, with the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, a roadmap for inclusive education.
That all sounds positive but the practicality and reality of it seem different. There are cuts to SNAs, redesignation of classes and the refusal to have diversity and mixture in the classes being opened. There are not enough classes in the first place. I will start with Dr. Brady. What is the implication of that for children with Down's syndrome? Is the direction of travel a positive or negative one? Is the voice of her organisation and that of children with Down's syndrome being adequately heard? For example, has Down's Syndrome Ireland contributed to the roadmap for inclusive education that is to be launched in the coming weeks?
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
It is important to state from the outset that Down's Syndrome Ireland is not anti-autism. We never were. Our issue is that we have students with Down's syndrome who cannot get access to the special class in their local area because all of the classes being opened are classes for children with autism. The only way a child with Down's syndrome can get into that class is if he or she has a dual diagnosis of Down's syndrome and autism. That itself is an issue. I am aware, from having spoken to parents and members, that people feel compelled to try to get an autism diagnosis for their child.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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What does Dr. Brady think is happening there? I met this week with a school principal who wanted to open a language class but was told by the SENO that they do not do that. Those were her words.
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
That is the problem all over. I gave the numbers in my opening statement. Only 6% of classes in primary school will be suitable for children with Down's syndrome, yet 93% of these classes have been opened for children with autism.
The issue we are also confronted with is that the Department tells us we can hardly expect it to open a class for one child with Down's syndrome. We do not and have never expected that. However, we are convinced that if the classes were there, the children would come. I can only speak today about children with Down's syndrome. That is my role. There are other children with other intellectual disabilities and disabilities that are not autism who would still benefit from a special class in their local area. I know one mother who has had to move house because her child was being driven two and a half hours each way every day to gain access to a special class.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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What is at the root of this? Is it a different understanding of what the model of inclusion is?
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
Absolutely, and I know Ms McDonagh addressed inclusion. It is what underpins everything we do. The vast majority of children with Down's syndrome are able for mainstream class, but that does not mean we can forget about the rest of the children if they cannot cope in a mainstream setting. It speaks volumes about inclusion. We are talking about re-evaluating and looking again at SNA allocations and at this and that. There is no clear roadmap as to where this will go. We have been banging this drum for the past number of years. In my opinion, the issue came to a head when the Department of education removed the criterion of complex educational needs from the SET allocation in schools. That was in 2024. That has stirred things up because many parents sense that because their child is no longer considered as having complex needs, they will not get the same level of support and that, therefore, mainstream is not going to be an option. These parents then found that a special class was not an option either because the nearest one is two and a half hours away.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I will not get to everybody, unfortunately. I ask Ms McDonagh about the model of inclusion and the opportunity for input into that.
Ms Derval McDonagh:
Dr. Brady has described a fragmented system. Unfortunately, when systems are fragmented we end up in this competitive mode. What would be more useful is for the system itself to take responsibility for that and to say all children are equally deserving of an inclusive education system and it is about all of us collaborating to make that happen. First and foremost, we need to acknowledge that real discrimination and inequality exist in our education system. That is the reality, and we would like to like to see leadership and courage shown in admitting that part out loud.
As Mr. Harris said, we are absolutely awash with policy and planning for the future, but we need a concrete action plan that everybody can get behind and that includes every child, whether they are autistic, have an intellectual disability, or both. It should be about every child belonging in their local school. The best place to start is by listening to children and their experience. Children and young people are the absolute experts on their lives. They are telling us every day what needs to change.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Has Inclusion Ireland been consulted on the roadmap?
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for being here. It is our pleasure to have them. I single out Ms McPhillips-Sheridan for special mention. What an ambassador she is. She is truly inspiring. She said that autistic people have strengths, perspectives and abilities to change communities. How right she is. It behoves us to have people like her, with the attributes she presents, devising policy, rather than the people who think they know it and who make mistakes. That is what I find compelling. Sometimes people's abilities are ignored in the devising policy business.
I am sickened when I hear from Dr. Brady that there is not a database to tell us what numbers are coming next in each school year. That is grossly offensive and annoying in a context where everyone knows there is a record of everyone who is born. If there is not one, God knows there should be. That a student would come from starting school to transitioning into secondary education and there seems to be no database is despicable and deplorable. Someone needs to get that right. That is an archaic system that needs to change rapidly.
Mr. Harris rightly mentioned that we have all the roadmaps, frameworks and legislative proposals but, somehow or other, wherever they are, we seem to abandon them when it comes to formulating policy. It beggars belief to think we do that. How is it that a collective would not come together to decide what is best for each school, child or community? A child could arrive in a school and not have a place because they would not have the assessment of needs done or there would not be a special place for that student. It is as if, God help me for saying this, we started this yesterday and are only beginning to find out how we pigeonhole all of these different elements. It is fundamentally sickening, to say the least, that we are where we are when we should not be. Forgive me for saying this, but we have all these desk clerk academics who believe they have the fix for what is required. Somewhere in between fall the victims, special people who want an opportunity to get an education and go on to be professionals - I will not say successful - like Ms McPhillips-Sheridan.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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That annoys me. We have had witnesses in before and have listened carefully to their testimonies and somehow or other, we seem to be back at the start.
Ms McDonagh mentioned inclusion as a burden instead of inclusion as an opportunity and I am sorry to say that is very true in the context of how things are being managed. It is not all bad. What I am saying is that what is going on is criminal and, by God, we have quite a distance to go. I just wanted to make comments rather than asking any question. If any of the witnesses have anything to add to what I have just said, by all means do. I could ask all the questions in the world but I sometimes think that no matter what responses I hear, we are still a considerable distance from getting this to where we need to be. Ms Brady might respond.
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
To respond to the Deputy's commentary on the data, we in Down Syndrome Ireland find that a huge problem. Realistically, we are making rough guesses at how many people with Down's syndrome there are in the Republic of Ireland. We are just making rough guesses based on the birth rate. From that, we are making rough guesses at how many children are in school because the categories that are counted in school are either mild, moderate or severe to profound intellectual disability. From my perspective, and that of my CEO as well, we can only talk for people who are members of Down Syndrome Ireland. There are a lot of people out there with Down's syndrome who are not members of Down Syndrome Ireland. You become a member by choice. I refer to us knowing how many members there were in the schools. A colleague and I in Down Syndrome Ireland work very closely with the NCSE in delivering webinars and seminars on training for post-primary teachers, particularly in regard to Down's syndrome. The NCSE itself has even said that it has no idea how many students there are with Down's syndrome in the various post-primary schools nationally. That is wrong.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Absolutely.
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
The Deputy coined it very well when he said it is disrespectful. It actually is. If my son or daughter has Down's syndrome, well then they deserve the respect of being counted as somebody, not just another mild or moderate learning disability. I agree with the Deputy on that point and thank him for bringing it up because we put great importance on that and we have raised it before with the Minister. We have raised it with the NCSE and we will keep raising it because we think it is important.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Well done. I thank Dr. Brady.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I thank all of the speakers this morning. Like the previous speakers, we need this engagement. It is good to hear it.
Going back to Dr. Brady, the point that really stood out there was the data-----
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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-----and the fact that there are no data, in this day and age. We look where the provision for special education has come from. I am from Castlerea in County Roscommon. In 1981, Sr. Jacinta Cullinan set up St. Michael's Special School, with inclusive education. It has gone through multiple expansions since then but it was ahead of its time. We now look at 2026. We have a budget for special education of about €3 billion. It is hard to think we are making decisions without data to back it up and justify that. For all the experts, it seems crazy that budgets and decisions can be made without having those data. My first question is why is the State not collecting those data?
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
I have no idea, I have to tell the Senator. That is my honest answer. We have never got a satisfactory explanation from either the Department of education or the National Council for Special Education as to why this is the case. I am head of education; I deal with schools and look at education but there is no national register of people with Down's syndrome in Ireland. There is nothing. Such a thing does not exist.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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So Down Syndrome Ireland is only dealing with the people who actively come to it.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Yes, and we all know Irish people, by their very nature - and the parents of these students - are out there fighting their causes themselves. They just want a fair system.
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
Absolutely. That is what we have to go by. We can only get a vague idea, based on the birth rate, statistics and the Central Statistics Office, CSO. I cannot take credit for this; it was a colleague of mine who did it. I am no good at numbers. She has figured out, based on the CSO figures, etc., that we could probably go with maybe 120 to 130 students, or children with Down's syndrome who are born every year in Ireland. That is very much a ballpark guess and it is all we have. It is shocking that we do not know. It should not just be related to education. There should be a register of all. I do not know whether Mr. Harris or Ms McDonagh have the same problems.
Mr. Adam Harris:
I might come in on this point. The whole issue of demographics is something that the Department of education is really constantly behind the curve on. There is also no relevant census question on autism in Ireland. We have seen from a point in time a number of years ago where we know the Department was massively underplanning for perhaps 1 in 100 or 1 in 65 children being autistic to now a reality, due to improved understanding, where it is estimated that 1 in 20 children are autistic in our school system. That is still only an estimate.
What is a real worry though is in responding to this, the Department is often quite incoherent in its approach. For example, we saw, right before Christmas, the Department announced that it might move away from needing diagnosis to access autism classes, even though the Department's own inspectorate reported that where the quality of teaching and learning in autism classes was weakest was there was a lack of autism-specific training around autism. At times, I think there is an idea that if we start to count the data, we will have to resource it but when we do not count the data, the need does not go away. It just presents differently within the system. When we talk about 1 in 20 children being autistic, we also need to recognise that many of those children are also people who have a Down's syndrome diagnosis. They are also people who have an intellectual disability diagnosis. The point of the matter is that we are not going to reduce need by siloing but what we need to do is take a person-centred approach and also make sure there is appropriate diagnosis-specific knowledge within the system.
The most important point around these data is we are not only invisible in the data; we are also invisible in the discussion. We have heard from my colleague Ms McDonagh about how we were not at the table around the roadmap. The piece that also concerns me is that since the SNA piece, we have heard a lot about how communications could have been better. We have heard about how relations perhaps broke down between the trade union and the Department but what worries me is that is being presented as the problem. The problem is that we found out, by the by, that children were going to go without the supports they need and that is what needs to change. Any review moving forward needs to place that lived experience at the heart of the conversation.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I am sorry. I still cannot get my head around the fact that in what we are provisioning and budgeting for, we do not understand the scale of the situation we are dealing with. I would love if, collectively, the witnesses could come back with what data they think the Department should be gathering. Maybe that is something we could try and address.
With the one minute I have left, I congratulate and thank Ms McPhillips-Sheridan. I did not want to leave her out of this. She said that in regard to assistive technology, people are waiting for many months to have the supports put in place and access to it for their education.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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What are the consequences of delays like that?
Ms Emily McPhillips-Sheridan:
I have a very special little person in my life, who is my godson. He is currently waiting for assistive technology. He is going to school every morning not wanting to go. He has told his mam he wants to quit school. He is only in third class. He has so much academic ability but it is being missed. Then, on the SNA access and the debacle with that, there is an SNA in their school. There is a number of children who need SNA access but that is not being catered for.
The assistive technology piece is really important. I use assistive technology in college. I know how important it can be for accessing the curriculum. I would not have been able to sit my leaving certificate without it. He is waiting and waiting and I know he is not the only one. There are loads of children. The issue is that you are told it is with the SENO. Then you are told it is with the Department of education. Then you are told it is with the SENO; then you are told it is with the Department of education and it is the child who is missing out in all of this. It is not that we are begging for something that is not available. It is absolutely available and coming back to the Senator's point-----
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Ms McPhillips-Sheridan can finish her point.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms McPhillips-Sheridan very much.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Good morning to all of our witnesses. I thank them for their opening statements. A special welcome to Ms McPhillips-Sheridan, my fellow countywoman. I had to mention her and congratulate her on all the work she does.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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After listening to everything here, we had the NCSE and the Department in last week as well. In regard to one of to the questions I would have asked, I think Mr. Harris put it a slightly different way.
It is like we stumble from crisis to crisis every school year, when we do not have appropriate places for students in primary or secondary school. They need to come up with a concrete plan for inclusive education. They are saying they will be publishing in a few weeks. It is disturbing to know that none of our guests have been properly consulted on that. That is kind of in contravention of the UNCRPD. Our guests made reference to the EPSEN Act, other policy documents and so forth. If the policies that are there were implemented, would we have a truly inclusive education system? What does the country need to do? Every time you ask a question about a special class or a special school, you get a ream about how the Department has opened so many schools and provided so many SNAs. I know from talking to individuals, parents and teachers that special classes are opened in schools but it is often down to there being a really, proactive principal, deputy principal or leadership in the school on being inclusive. It should not be down to individuals. I have also come across instances where special classes have opened but the person who is going in to take that special class is not trained. They are doing their absolute best, trying to upskill themselves, but there seems to be a lag in the training provision for SET. To have a truly education system, we should be able to say to any student, regardless of whether they are autistic, have an intellectual disability or have Down's syndrome, or all three, that they should go to their local school and be catered for there. We are a long way away from that. I am seeing parents now looking to access a special school because they do not have faith in the supports being in the mainstream school. That is going back to segregating our students, putting students who are seen to be a little bit different into a different school. How far do we have to go back and what needs to be done? Are there any good international models of inclusive education that our witnesses are aware of?
Mr. Adam Harris:
There would be huge progress if we implemented all of the policy documents that we have. We need to face the reality that our one piece of legislation that would provide rights within the education system has never been fully commenced. The entire last Oireachtas term was spent reviewing that legislation. We still have no implementation plan for the outcome of that review. Even beyond existing policy, there is another important point. We hear year on year that there are increases and we acknowledge that. Of course, we are always going to call for more resources and more investment. However, we are failing to recognise the demographic element of budgeting. In actual fact, need has increased so much that there is a reality that even when resources are increasing, they are not real increases and often they are not keeping pace with demand. Everything within our system at the moment operates on a grace and favour, charity model type approach. There seems to be a growing reticence to put any sort of rights around the rights students would have for supports within school. Until we move to that system where people are rights holders in the education system, not just people competing with one another for resources, we are going to have a real challenge.
On the Senator's vision around everyone having an opportunity to go to the school in the local community, that is a vision we hear a lot from the Department. It is a vision that we share and the UN convention shares. The bedrock for how we get to there is trust. Every time there is a failed announcement, every time families are excluded from the table and every time families see in practice that in-mainstream children are not having their needs met, whether that is in terms of resources or how people are treated in school in respect of codes of behaviour, suspensions and restraint, we are moving further and further from that vision. We need to start at trust and respect. There really does need to be a significant piece of work done by the Department around how they build that trust because it is totally lost at the moment.
Ms Derval McDonagh:
Just to add to that, we need a deep reckoning with how we have supported disabled children in our education system over the last number of years. With over €3 billion going towards supporting children, we need to make sure every single euro of that is going towards inclusion rather than exclusion. Unfortunately, we are hearing really difficult stories coming from children and families every single day. There was a report in The Irish Times at the weekend about the numbers of children experiencing restraint in our education system. Even with all of the narratives around SNAs, the question we were asking ourselves at Inclusion Ireland was, "why are so many children distressed in our schools?" Why do so many children rely so much on an SNA just to manage their distress levels day to day? There is something deeply wrong. We can either keep going on this train the way we are going, and keep trying to squeeze children into these narrow boxes, where they belong in a special school, a special class or a mainstream class, or we can actually reimagine what an inclusive education system looks like. That does not mean tweaking around the edges and dealing with one crisis or one issue with a band aid here and a band aid there. That means a full plan which is guided by children and their families, who are the experts, step by step, to get to that stage of children being able to go to their local school. The Senator and Mr. Harris mentioned the word "trust". That has got to be the bedrock for that plan.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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I also asked about the international models.
Ms Derval McDonagh:
I know the Department has done a lot of research recently through its programme. They are looking at some of the Nordic models such as Finland and Sweden. They have also looked at Portugal and Canada. No matter where you look, there are always challenges. I think we are lying to ourselves if we think there is an end destination where we will have reached Nirvana and perfection. Inclusion is actually a journey towards better. At least we should be seeing incremental, positive change towards that.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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I was taken with Dr. Brady's mention of the lack of data on Down's syndrome children in schools. My own sphere of influence would be primary schools. From my limited knowledge, it is not an unusual situation. For example, the Scottish Department of education does not collect data on Down's syndrome children either. If we were at a committee meeting in Scotland, we would be asking the very same questions. To the best of my knowledge, looking at the figures around the place, trying to extrapolate from the birth rate and other stuff, in primary schools in Ireland you could have around 500 Down's syndrome children. Interestingly, even though the population is bigger in Scotland, the number estimated in Scottish primary schools would be less than that. It is just one of these vagaries. If we had hard evidence and hard figures, what tangible benefit would it bring to us?
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
As Ms McDonagh and Mr. Harris have mentioned, we can go through the next ten years implementing every possible policy and every possible document that has been developed for us. We have to cater not just for children with Down's syndrome but also for children with a lot of different disabilities. We need to know what is ahead and what we need. It does not matter how many policies we implement; we must have the resources to put those policies into action. We cannot develop sufficient and adequate resources unless we know roughly how many people we are talking about.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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It is around 500 in primary schools, is it not?
Joe Conway (Independent)
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We have a birth rate of-----
Joe Conway (Independent)
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I do not accept that is the right figure, really. From my research it would be around 70 to 80. If we multiply that by the eight years of primary school, that brings us to about 560, give or take. It is not really rocket science to make a reasonable stab at it.
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
It is not. We will have to agree to differ on the numbers. Unless we have the resources in place, it does not matter what numbers we are talking about. Mr. Harris put it very well when he said that we can run around for the next 20 years implementing policies and looking at this roadmap and that roadmap. We must adequately resource them and look at them from an inclusionary perspective rather than an exclusionary perspective. We need planning that actually represents the needs of the whole population, not solely children with autism, children with Down's syndrome or children with a hearing impairment. We need the whole population to be represented. I was interested to hear Senator Tully talking about the difficulties raised. There seems to be a huge disconnect in policy and policy-making from the actual student population.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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One of the witnesses - I do not know who - said there must be something fundamentally wrong with schools when there is so much deferment by children with additional support needs to SNAs. My background is that I was a teaching principal in a rural school for 19 years. I always tried to lead our team by bringing the teachers, with the parents and pupils, to the frame of mind that we would try to build a sense of independence in the children. We are not talking about Down's syndrome but lots of children often present in the classroom as being needy or attention-seeking. Teachers are very overworked now. They are trying to deal with 28, 29 or 30 pupils in a class. If you have needy or attention-seeking pupils, it can be very fractious in a classroom. You try to build a sense of independence for those children. I think it is a culture in a classroom or in a school. The more independence you try to build in the students or the pupils as they come through, the less deferment there will be for supports. I think that is something we must not lose sight of. We can tend to produce a situation in classrooms where there is an untoward gravitation towards support, and it may not always be necessary.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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I am not saying that-----
Joe Conway (Independent)
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I know that but I am trying to present the pressures that ordinary classrooms and ordinary teachers have. Very often, there will be children who will demand extra attention.
Mr. Adam Harris:
They are resolved by changing the environment, not changing the child. If we were collecting data, we would have a disaggregated picture of the outcomes of our education system. We hear a lot about Ireland's education system and its many achievements. We can look at that as an international example but the reality is that when we disaggregate the outcomes, they are so poor for our children. That is because there is an expectation that we should conform to environments that treat us as misbehaving children as opposed to meeting our needs and centring our rights.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being here and, more important, for what they do beyond the committee. We follow what they all do for their representative bodies - well done. Ms McPhillips-Sheridan is here as an individual. Well done for the advocacy she does. I am delighted to hear she is going on with her studies. I will start with Dr. Brady. I think we can test for Down's syndrome in a foetus of 15 weeks. I think that is what the test in Ireland is now.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Our health services know before a child is born that the child is likely to have Down's syndrome. It is not an absolute test but it is fairly likely. It is unforgivable that years later, after the child has been raised at home, has maybe been in childcare and is about to start primary school, all of this is not plugged in together. It is devastating to hear that today.
I was a teacher, like several others in the room, and have encountered a few past pupils in town shopping on a Saturday. Once or twice over the years, they have told me, "I've some big news. I'm after doing my leaving cert and I went and got myself checked. I referred myself through my GP to an educational psychologist and I've been diagnosed with autism." I have had past pupils come to me at 18 years of age and say, "I've gone through all my formal schooling and now I've a diagnosis of autism." It is hard to reconcile an unborn baby being diagnosed with Down's syndrome with someone reaching adulthood and only then being diagnosed with autism. I ask Mr. Harris or Ms McPhillips-Sheridan whether there is an average age in Ireland at which we are able to diagnose autism. Are we way behind other countries? It does not reconcile with this whole thing.
Mr. Adam Harris:
Thankfully, we have seen in recent years an evolving understanding of what it means to be autistic. In the past we had a narrow understanding and a stereotypical view. Many people as a result went undiagnosed, particularly autistic women but also autistic people whose presentation was different or who had to mask their differences every day in school. It is an unfortunate reality that for most of the history of autism, masking was seen as our goal. We tried to make autistic people like non-autistic people - less "attention-seeking" and less "needy", to borrow the phrase. Thankfully, we now realise the thicker the mask somebody wears, the more significant the impact it has on a person's mental health. Sometimes people have gone through the entire educational system at a huge emotional cost before they access diagnosis.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Very damaging.
Mr. Adam Harris:
Hugely damaging. It is very positive that people are now accessing late diagnosis. In theory, a person can be diagnosed as autistic at around 18 months but it very much depends on the person's presentation. Where we are falling down in Ireland is that where a person would be in a position to get a diagnosis, they are still waiting too long, often many years.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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On the bell curve from 18 months to adulthood, is there an average diagnostic age? It is wrong that someone could finish all their formal schooling and only then be diagnosed.
Mr. Adam Harris:
That is correct. That is something we have seen in recent times - for example, in the work of this committee. If you looked at the number of children who are autistic in special schools or special classes, you would be led to believe it is perhaps four to one. That is because boys are still accessing diagnosis at a far earlier age, often before it is time to go to school. Teenage girls often only access diagnosis in secondary school and as they approach adulthood. It is important we make sure people get their diagnosis as early as possible, certainly in their childhood years. A huge concern otherwise is, first, they go through education without support and, second, we do not have a public pathway for adult assessment in Ireland, which we are an outlier on in a European context.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I will ask Ms McDonagh a couple of questions. NEPS psychologists are typically one of the first gateways from having a disability or being neurodivergent to getting support. I am increasingly hearing from schools, and can remember from when I was a teacher, that an email goes around to staff saying a NEPS psychologist is in the school next week and asking if there is anyone they want to put on his or her list to be seen. If you are lucky enough to get one child through the crack in the door that day, that is it. If how they present or their challenges in life change, they will probably never see a NEPS psychologist again. Is that typical that they are only seen once by the State-provided NEPS psychologist?
Ireland has the third highest prevalence of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, FASD, in the world, yet it is one of the few countries which does not recognise it as a disability. Does Ms McDonagh's body cover FASD? There is FASD Ireland but does the condition also come under Inclusion Ireland's umbrella?
Ms Derval McDonagh:
On the point about lack of psychology support, that is absolutely the experience of our members and it is what families report to us. It is a symptom of a fragmented system. All our policy, like Sláintecare and our education policy, should be coming together and we should be focused on children's and families' early years experience in an integrated way. It should not be about being bounced from being lucky enough to access the NEPS psychologist to being on a waiting list for a CDNT to looking for an assessment or diagnosis. It should be based on the child's needs and the family's needs in those early years. Unfortunately, we are way off that at the moment. That fragmentation is very real for children.
FASD, and the children and adults who experience intellectual disabilities as a result of it, falls under our advocacy work. There is a particular association focusing its efforts there but it is recognised as a particular issue.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It has been a long-standing campaign led by many in this country. I propose that the committee write to the Minister for Health to recognise FASD as a disability in Irish life, particularly in schools. I am seeking a seconder for that proposal today. Deputy Dempsey has seconded it.
Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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Sorry, I had to leave for a question in the Dáil so I hope I do not repeat anything that has been said.
I will start by saying, as a former teacher, that every facet of the education system is so ableist when you step back and think about it, including the whole premise of the points system, the environment of the school and just sitting down at desks and in seats. A friend of mine who was an SNA in another country commented on coming back to Ireland and seeing it being even more backward in enforcing that. I refer to school reports. I shudder now when I think of some of the comments I would have put in school reports: "must try harder", "not concentrating" and all those things. It was just through sheer ignorance. We have to recognise that teachers, particularly older teachers, like the rest of society, were not trained at all and just kind of fitted into this thing. The whole philosophy of education is so ableist: even clothing, uniforms, the whole discipline system, trying to enforce silence and not recognising stimming. I do shudder when I think back. You think you are a capable teacher but, actually, your whole world has been very narrow. I just wanted to say that for everybody here. I had some experience of teaching a student with Down's syndrome for a while years ago, but it was very much ad hoc. The school was trying to get a teacher to meet with them.
I have just two questions I will put. I sense from Dr. Brady's submission that she feels aggrieved that because of the awareness around autism, ADHD and neurodivergence, intellectual disability or Down's syndrome is getting left behind. That is a very strong thing running through her submission. Obviously, there is a difference in terms of the number of people who are impacted, and that will affect the provision numbers. What is Dr. Brady's ideal situation?
The second question is about autism. I want to focus not only on secondary school, because it is something I have been contacted about for years, but also particularly on primary schools because of parents' campaigning. Let us be clear: it is for no other reason. It was not the goodness of the parties in power; it was parents insisting that their children deserve more. Have the witnesses had any discussion with the Department of education about secondary education and provision in particular? For years the Department has known that these autism classes exist in primary school, and then it expects people to go into an even more chaotic and hostile environment, to be frank, in secondary school. I think secondary teachers are less equipped than primary teachers to deal with neurodivergence or disability because you learn your English, you learn your maths, you teach your science and it is very academic. It just seems to me to be the big area now that we need a lot of attention on.
I do not know which question the witnesses want to take first.
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
I will go first. I thank the Deputy for that. I am smiling to myself because we are surrounded by teachers. I am a teacher as well. I have been a primary teacher for many years and the principal of a rural school in Cavan. I have never taught a single-stream class. I have always had multi-stream classes. I taught for years in a two-teacher school. That was always very interesting.
Where we are coming from on this is the fact that we feel with the planning and the policymaking and the way it is being engaged with at the moment that, yes, our children are considered invisible. You may have a child with Down's syndrome who cannot cope in a mainstream class and who would benefit from even a part of the day in a special class setting where they could maybe do some literacy or numeracy while also being in the mainstream with their peers for the rest of that day. However, if that class is not available to them because they do not have a dual diagnosis, that child is virtually invisible. The Deputy asked what we see and where we see this going. We need a balance of special class provision delivered nationally. It needs to be a needs-based education system, not policy based and not just policy driven because such-and-such a policy or such-and-such a rule or an Act says so. There needs to be a needs-led approach and it needs to ensure equitable access for all students, including students with autism and students with foetal alcohol syndrome, which was just mentioned. All these students need to get that access to appropriate educational settings. We need to be planning for a system that reflects the actual needs of the population going forward. We will not stand still on this. The Deputy talks as a teacher and about the way we probably marked things and the way we did things. If I were back in school, I would probably do the same thing I was always doing. We must move on but in doing so we must reflect the needs of the population, not just what a policy says. No policy is written in stone. Policies are made to be implemented, worked on and reviewed to make sure they are working.
I will pass over to Mr. Harris for the second question.
Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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Sorry, I did not leave enough time for it, but-----
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I hope we will have a second round.
Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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Yes. Sorry about that.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I call Deputy Jen Cummins.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank all the witnesses, especially Ms McPhillips-Sheridan, for being here. Her contribution was excellent. Her response to a previous question was also excellent. There were a lot of nodding heads from this side of the table in agreement with her, so well done to her on handling that.
It has struck me over the course of listening that I am so annoyed about this issue. I did not think I was as annoyed but I am just thinking of all the constituents who have contacted me over recent months in particular and all the stories I have heard from parents who are absolutely exhausted and so angry about what they hear at different committees, in the Dáil or in the Seanad. I am just flabbergasted as to why this is so hard. Why do we make everything in this country so hard for people who are already in a really difficult situation? It was mentioned earlier that the good practice comes from Nordic countries, like Finland, which this committee visited, Canada and Portugal. If those practices exist there, why can we not do that here? As somebody said earlier, it is like we only started this yesterday. It is flabbergasting. I am just expressing my frustration in solidarity with the witnesses because I can imagine that every day their jobs must be so difficult as advocates and people working to represent a group that is just being silenced. As regards the system, as somebody said earlier as well, people are being pitted against one another: "There is only this finite amount of resources, so you can fight over it." It is like The Hunger Games or something like that. I noticed that Ms McDonagh said €3 billion is being spent, and the saying was that it has to be not about exclusion but about inclusion. I think we hear that often, that we are spending this amount of money and that amount of money, but the reality is that if it is not being spent appropriately for appropriate school places, it is a bloody waste of money. I am sorry for getting a bit cross. I do not want to curse. It is a matter of the plan being guided by children and young people. I was a youth worker for many years and I worked in the school completion programme. I am not a teacher but I have worked with very marginalised students for a long time. When we listen to those young people and the families who are there, that is where we get the answers. We are not doing enough of that, and I cannot understand why we are going from one policy to one disaster and then another policy. This exists already. The witnesses have said it very clearly. It has to be person centred. It has to follow the need of the individual. The reason school is distressing for people is that one size does not fit all, and our system is one size. I speak as a parent of a child with dyslexia, and the bloody leaving cert and the obsession with points do not take into consideration my daughter or any other student who does not get 3,000 million points in the leaving cert. That is not what the education system should be.
How can we engage children, young people and their parents more?
Who needs to listen to them? Not for tokenism either. For years, youth workers would get a young person in a room and it would be stated that it was just tokenistic. They would not be listening at all. How can we do that in an appropriate way?
When we design schools that are really inclusive for children, what does that look like from the perspective of physical buildings? If we walked into such a school, what would the atmosphere be like? Every school has its own unique atmosphere. What does a school look like when it is properly designed?
Ms Derval McDonagh:
I thank the Deputy for her questions. I will start with the second one regarding what an inclusive school looks and feels like. Children and families know that really well. We have had family members of ours who have applied to and gone to visit multiple schools. You just know when you walk in what an inclusive school looks and feels like.
Ms Derval McDonagh:
There is an immediate acceptance and a feeling of being met at the door and being accepted for who you are and the strengths you bring to that school. There is a kind of joy that you are there and belong there, and that no matter what, the school will fight to keep you there. Everybody knows that feeling. When you do not have that feeling, you know you are on the way out of that school because that lack of acceptance is so damaging.
In terms of the physical infrastructure, we need to reimagine what schools could and should look like. Of course, children are going to need spaces to come and go from freely. Children who are distressed or who need a bit of individual support, are going to need some space where they can go to from time to time. They should be able to join their peers for classes and dip in and out when they need to. It is just a reimagining of what the school footprint looks like already. It is not that hard.
We often hear about special schools. Ultimately, what happens in a special school can be really easily created in a local school. It is just about the resourcing and making sure it is going in the right way. Children being silenced was mentioned earlier. It is about children being both silenced and devalued. We do not treat disabled children in the same way as we treat other children. There is such deep inequality in the system. We have to face that and name it, rather than congratulating ourselves over and over by saying that we have built a certain number of additional special classes or special schools. If the net result is that there is restraint in schools, our policies are deeply ableist. If children are being excluded and suspended on the basis of reduced timetables and if this is the net result of that investment, then we are failing. We need to really analyse where the money invested will best be spent.
Mr. Adam Harris:
I will add to that quickly. It starts with being at the table. The first that many families will have heard about the SNA piece would have been when they read the Irish Examiner. The first they will have heard of a major change to autism classes and special schools was in a press release that came just before Christmas. That really speaks to the power dynamics at the heart of the education system as well. We can imagine a situation where people have had to apply to 20 schools to get a single place. When things are not going well in school and your voice is not being heard, families often struggle to advocate and safeguard their rights. The student support plan is how that can come to life at individual school level, but very often that voice is silenced at local level.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Very good. I call Deputy Aisling Dempsey.
Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses for being here. It has been extremely educational and informative. Like the previous speakers stated, it is horrible to see the situation where people feel like they are pitted against each other. I know none of the organisations are anti-autism or vice versa. It is a terrible situation where they feel so let down by the system. We also have a massive cultural issue. I met Mr. Harris at the launch of the Trim autism-friendly town initiative. I was very honoured to be part of setting up that association. I feel that it has made a huge difference in our town from a cultural point of view.
I was struck by a comment Ms McPhillips-Sheridan made about sensory-friendly classroom in a mainstream setting. I was shocked that it had not really occurred to me, and that I had thought about a special class providing for all the needs. As has just been stated, it is the entire school that needs to do that.
My first question is for Mr. Harris. Does he feel that the setting up of these autism-friendly town committees has made a difference in an educational setting? Does he find that the school community in those towns is embracing inclusion more?
Mr. Adam Harris:
One of the things we are beginning to see in a positive ecosystem is that when an autism-friendly town committee is set up in an area, other organisations follow suit. For example, we now have towns in the country where there is an autism-friendly town committee, an autism-friendly higher education institution committee and a number of schools in our autism-friendly schools programme. That ecosystem is really important. Having said that, an issue that comes up again and again for those involved in our autism-friendly town committees is that they are getting involved in those because they are doing what they can control. Their children need social opportunities and they can help to create them. They want their children to be able to go to the shop independently, so the person working in the shop can be trained to understand communication differences. People want to be able to enjoy St. Patrick’s Day, so a quiet space can be created. There is often huge frustration within our community about the fact that so much can be achieved at grassroots level and that our families are often so far ahead of the very institutions funded and established to meet the support needs of our community.
Unfortunately, there is a reality there where we have autism-friendly towns, but where we have schools not participating. We might also have a scenario where people might feel included in their community, but they will go into a school where, because of the very differences embraced in the community, they may face suspension, expulsion, restraint or other sanctions. It helps and is really positive, and it is as much about educating peers as it is about teachers. We now have a programme where we go into primary and secondary schools to build that knowledge from the ground up. There is an interesting situation whereby our towns are sometimes ahead of our schools.
Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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That is interesting. I thank Mr. Harris.
Ms Emily McPhillips-Sheridan:
It is all about school culture as well. If there is an autism class in a school and the children are educated about that class, it becomes more normalised within the school. I did not get an autism class place until sixth year, but I facilitated an autism presentation to my peers and teachers when I was in sixth year. Some of the students in sixth year did not even know where the autism class was or what we did there. It was a case of “I do not know what goes on down in there”. It was just off the beaten track. There definitely needs to be more training for teachers on sensory-friendly environments. Equally, we are not asking for the Lotto or anything. This initiative can help not only children with autism, Downs syndrome or intellectual disabilities, but all children. If we have sensory considerations within the classroom, it can transform education for everyone and not just one cohort of students.
Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms McPhillips-Sheridan. Staying with her, if she does not mind, we have talked generally about what a sensory-friendly school setting is. In her experience, though, if she did not get into that class until sixth year, what major barriers and obstacles did she find in the mainstream classes that we could fix today?
Ms Emily McPhillips-Sheridan:
For a start, there were quite a lot of students in mainstream classes. I remember one time when I was in second year, when I had my first panic attack in school, and more than 40 of us were put into one room because we were being split into ordinary and higher level. That was a major trigger for me. There were also the corridors. I spent a lot of my time actually out in a corridor doing my schoolwork because I could not go into the classroom. For me, mainstream was an absolute disaster. There were not enough resources and supports. Going into those classrooms, there could have been 35 to 40 students in them. This compares with smaller classrooms and with the situation in colleges. I am in college now, and there are 40 students on our course. We could be in a room that could fit in up to 70 people, whereas in school we could have been in a room that could only fit in 20, but there were 30 people in it. We need to go to the best EU standards with classroom numbers as well.
I also think that there needs to be more than just one sensory room or quiet space in a school. There need to be lots of them. When they are used, what happens then to another child? Mainly for me in mainstream, it was the whole lack of understanding and lack of resources. My mam and dad had to fight every year for SNA access. When I was in fifth year, we were told that I did not really need SNA access any more. It was a case of "We are promoting independence for her." When I went to the autism class, I automatically got my autism class teacher and SNAs. In the end, because I was not getting the level of SNA access I needed, teachers had to be put into my maths class and into different classes to support me because there was a lack of SNAs.
Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms McPhillips-Sheridan very much.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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As some members are not present, we will go to a second round of contributions. The time is limited, so we will have two minutes per member. We will also provide time for the witnesses to wrap up.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I will return to the issue of engagement. It seems we are at a very important juncture. I hear from the Government that in light of the SNA debacle, we need to create a space to talk about what the future of inclusive education in Ireland will look like. The Department seems to be going off and either consulting with itself or with certain European counterparts, but not very widely. It states that it will prepare a paper and present it. Do the witnesses have a perspective on what a fully participative policy development should look like? This is aside from the fact of implementing policy. It is more about getting to a place where people can look at the policy and say, “There is my input.”
Mr. Adam Harris:
That is an important point. In a sense, we do not have to develop such an idea because it already exists in the UN Convention. When the disability rights movement started, we used to talk about “Nothing about us without us”, but we now talk about the concept of “Nothing without us.” There is no aspect of our education system that we should be discussing without including the voices of disabled people. There is a real challenge at the moment because while new mechanisms have been developed to consult our groups specifically on issues around what is termed special education within the Department, that is not broader or deeper engagement across the whole of the Department and the various areas. We often see silos, even within a specific Department.
There also continues to be a hierarchy. It continues to be the case that the engagement works until it does not work. It works until we are not consulted on something that is incredibly important, as happened in this instance. It works until there is a competition of interests, and then it often feels like the voice of the child, the voice of the disabled child in particular, is the weakest. If we take the issue of restraint as one example, it is a scenario where we have guidelines that AsIAm, Inclusion Ireland, the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection and the Ombudsman for Children have been clear do not protect children in school. In the data published yesterday, we saw that two children account for over 10% of the instances of restraint. It had taken 44 days for the NCSE to be notified of those instances, and that agency has no investigative powers. The reason those guidelines exist as they do is that more powerful interests prevented a more robust system. We really need to flip that over.
Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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I will give the witnesses a chance to answer the question that I did not give them enough time to answer. It relates to secondary school education and how it is so far behind primary.
Mr. Adam Harris:
I have engaged with the campaign group in Dublin 15, who have done extraordinary work. What is very frustrating for campaign groups is that they will often campaign in a particular area, such as a special school or a primary school, but there is still no forward thinking for the next stage in life. Where I think the committee should focus its attention is on the parents notify process. In theory, this year, for the first time, every child in the country who needed an autism class place should have been notified to the NCSE. That should give us a very good sense of the pipeline of need for next September, but also in eight years’ time. What we know is that in the present education system, well over 90% of those who start their education journey in an autism class continue right the way through within it. Therefore, that needs to be the basis of planning in the current system.
What ends up happening, including in secondary school, is that we have to spend so much time focusing on the place and the access that there is no discussion about the very specific barriers that arise in a secondary school context that have not even been considered. For example, the sensory environment is much bigger and there is the moving of classes. There is also the reality that the curriculum is often not accessible or inclusive for young people, particularly those with intellectual disabilities. We have a concern, in particular at secondary level, about the use of resources. We see scenarios where special education time is used to put on additional higher level English and maths classes, as opposed to reaching the students it has been designated for.
We published a report, What We Wish You Knew, last year which looks at the impacts of codes of behaviour on autistic young people, given that support needs are very often treated as disciplinary matters in a school. We need to see the data from parents notify to understand what the demand is, because now, for the first time, it cannot be said that it is not there. It is there. We also need to act on that data so we can really talk about quality and experience in secondary school.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I know where Mr. Harris is from, but I do not know where everyone else here is based geographically. In the rural county that I represent, a special class opens with six places available. There are probably one or two in the school already who will migrate to that special class, and the Department and the local SENO will then start matching students to that class. What invariably happens is that the class fills up very quickly, and all six places will be taken up, so the school might want to open another one. The following year, the neighbouring school will open a class/ In the meantime, what happens is that children from other parts of the county apply. Clare is a vast county. If I want to travel from my neck of the woods to the other side of the county, some parts could be one hour and 50 minutes from my home. I know some children who make a one-hour journey one way each morning, sometimes going in taxis or Department-provided transport, and they pass another car on the road going to their local school. This whole dream that parents have, that the child will go to the local school, be invited to the birthday party, kick ball at the weekends or hang out at play dates, is not really happening because there is this criss-crossing effect in rural counties. I ask the witnesses to give a view on that.
Ms Derval McDonagh:
Again, that is a symptom of a system that is starting with the system as opposed to the child. What we are saying is that we will have a special class and then we will fit children into it, as opposed to looking at the community around the school, seeing who we have - whether disabled children, children from migrant backgrounds or children with mental health conditions - and asking how we can support them within the school environment. We are always starting at the wrong end. When we start in the wrong way, we end up fitting children in and bussing them around, with children passing their local schools. It becomes a bureaucratically driven system as opposed to a child-led one. That is something we absolutely need to turn around. The school is the epicentre. Those around you in that community are the people you serve, and the school needs to be resourced to meet the needs. It should not be a case of, “If we do not have six children, how can we scramble to fit them in?” If we have three or four children, it should be about how we can support them effectively.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I had meant to go to Ms McPhillips-Sheridan but we are out of time. There should be time for everyone at the end because there are other elements to discuss. It is a bit quick-fire, so my apologies for that. I call Senator Scahill.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Mr. Harris and other witnesses referred to Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He said that every child has a right to reasonable accommodations and individualised supports to access individual education. Does Mr. Harris feel that the current policies are doing that? If not, what needs to change?
Mr. Adam Harris:
It is very clearly not the case. One of the main reasons is that we have seen a kind of misinformation being built up over time, with the idea that the system cannot possibly meet the needs of autistic students, and that we need to move to a more needs-based model. Then, what we are shown is that the needs-based model is really a loss of transparency within the system as it is currently designed. What it is, basically, is the Department saying, “Here is a block of hours and you must live within these hours.” Instead of looking at what Adam or the child next to him needs, it is what they need relative to one another. That is not a rights-based model. What it is really doing is pitting families against each other. It often impacts on already fractious relationships between home and school, which we should be fostering and building, as opposed to putting under that sort of pressure.
What is concerning is that it leads to a loss of transparency. When we had the challenge around SET hours a couple of years ago, it was very clear to us that the removal of complex needs as a predictor was a problem. We knew, from hearing it from our communities, that children were not getting the SET hours they needed, but all the Department kept saying ad nauseam was that it gives schools the resources they need. We had no means of demonstrating that that was not the case because it is a guideline-based model that often sounds very progressive, but lacks specificity. That is why it is incumbent on us not to embrace that misinformation, but to recognise that if we choose not to invest in the life of a child now, we will pay for it later, but it will be in the context of much poorer outcomes for the individual and for society as well.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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A few times today, we have heard about schools not being welcoming places or being set up to be exclusionary rather than inclusionary. I am trying to put this in a politically correct way. How can we strongly encourage that schools behave as we would like them to behave, that is, to be inclusive, not exclusive? How far do we need to push it so that children do not feel the way that was described today and at other times?
Ms Emily McPhillips-Sheridan:
Clear guidelines and legislation need to be in place that the Department will supersede schools. There can be issues regarding certain cultures in certain schools regarding something that is said to a child. I know of cases where things were said to children that should not have been said to them. When one goes to the principal, he or she is the leader of the school. It is possible to get the board of management involved in stuff like that. I have experienced situations like this but at the end of the day, there can be a bit of siding. I am studying social care, which is regulated by CORU. CORU also regulates youth work. I know about the Teaching Council but there should be a body to which people can go that deals with that and inspects schools. I have said it previously that we need people who go into schools, meet autistic children and children with intellectual disabilities and ask them because they are the ones who are in there every day - not Ministers. It is the children who are in there every day.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I am conscious that we fire a lot of questions and do not always give time for them to be answered. To conclude, we will go from left to right. Witnesses have three minutes each to close and say what might not have been said during the meeting.
Ms Emily McPhillips-Sheridan:
I thank the committee for inviting me here today. It is a true honour. By the time I was diagnosed when I was nearly 17, my mam and dad had fought for three years to get me an assessment. I was so delighted to get my diagnosis when I did because it was a pivotal moment in helping me to understand myself.
Going back to an earlier point, there was an autism class in my school when I was diagnosed but it was full. I availed of some of the resources but I could not avail of the full resources because I was not in the autism class. I had to wait a further two years to get into the autism class because there was not enough space for me. If we have two or three students, why not open the places? We all have educational rights? There needs to be a clear consultation process with children, young people and adults - the likes of Mr. Harris, Ms McDonagh and me, who have been through the school system - so that they have a voice and their voice is listened to. I send emails constantly to TDs and Ministers. There can be a lot of toing and froing. I can go to the Minister for Education and Youth and be told the Minister of State for special education is responsible for that. That can be quite frustrating for families that constantly have to fight. I think of my godson in particular. His mother has four other children and does an amazing job fostering other children. We have been fighting for assistive technology for him since September but he still does not have it. He is coming near the end of third class and his mental health is being affected. What needs to be realised within education, and I know that this may be triggering for some people, is the fact that on average, autistic people have a higher chance of suicide. Our mental health and well-being can be affected by a lack of resources and support in school. I do not want any child or young person to have to go through this. I experienced very dark days and thoughts and the autism class was life-saving. The Department really needs to hear that this is not about wanting something. This is about the lives of human beings. We are human beings who really need this support. It can be a tick-box exercise a lot of the time. We really need to see the human being in this. Education affects well-being.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I wish Ms McPhillips-Sheridan the best of luck with her studies. When will she be finished?
Mr. Adam Harris:
I thank the committee for all the engagement and questions. There are a couple of points I would like to bring the committee's attention back to, particularly as it considers its report and recommendations on this. We do need to look at what policy recommendations exist in this space. I can point to one example of that, namely, the 2017 review of the SNA programme. This review made a series of recommendations but I will boil them down to two. One was that we should not make any changes to how we allocate SNAs until we look at the full range of supports students might need in the classroom. It will be a missed opportunity if we find ourselves back here next year discussing whether we need an extra 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 SNAs without also talking about therapeutic supports, additional teaching time, technology and so on. The second recommendation was that it was very clear that the specific additional needs that autistic children face in the classroom are often overlooked. It is important that when things are talked about in terms of people needing support, struggling with concentration or experiencing anxiety, while these might be experiences that all children will have some times, they can be pervasive experiences for autistic children. We need to make that distinction very clear in the circular and ensure that autistic people can access SNA support should they need it on that basis.
It is important to remind the committee that we are approaching the end of the academic year and many children still do not know where they are going to school in September. We need to see the parents notify data to look at how we can move forward in that regard. We have heard about the importance of data-based approaches today and this should be how we move forward generally from a policy point of view.
If I could only leave with a couple of points, it would be that even in the discourse today, there has been a charity-based approach to this issue. We have talked about whether we need more supports for autistic people, people with intellectual disabilities or people with Down's syndrome. We are talking about people who already have rights - the right to access an appropriate education. We should take this rights-based approach in all our approaches and not pit minorities against each other and certainly not taking a resource-based, race to the bottom approach, which is where the system pushes us at times. The autistic community has worked really hard to secure diagnoses. We have heard the testimony from autistic people who have accessed diagnosis about the transformative impact that has had but also about what life was like pre-diagnosis. We have to ensure that the system does not slip into a space of misinformation, does not devalue the importance of diagnosis and specific knowledge in autism in our education system and does not dismiss the very real-world needs. Sometimes what we hear from elected politicians and officials in terms of misinformation and disrespect for the support needs of our community plays out in classrooms across the country.
We need to focus on training. Training is so important and without it, we cannot move forward. I remind the committee that if we want to see the reality of a lack of training and a lack of support, it is the fact that in Ireland in 2026, over 400 instances of restraint have been used within our schools, there are injuries on the back of that in the academic year and there is very poor reporting and oversight from the Department about what is happening in that space. We urge the committee to find out more about how it could help. There needs to be a point in time when an advocacy service is put in place for families when crises emerge in school and people cannot access resources so that they have a strong voice in their engagement with schools.
Ms Derval McDonagh:
I thank the Cathaoirleach for the opportunity to sum up. It is fair to say that we have a long and sad history of segregation and institutionalisation of people with intellectual disabilities. That legacy is still here today and we have to grapple with it. I was really struck by what Deputy Coppinger said about ableism in the system. That is a hangover from that. That exclusion and the sense that people do not belong here but should be separate are deeply baked into our policies and institutions and we have to challenge and unpick them as a society. I will quote from a very short anonymised letter received by one of our family members recently so we can see how this plays out day to day. It was from the family's local school. The letter stated: "Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, our autism class is full and has a long waiting list."
It further stated: "If you wish to apply and your daughter's diagnosis is mild autism and nothing else we can put her on the waiting list. If your daughter has more needs our autism class would not be able to meet those requirements and it would be better to apply to a special school." Imagine, as a family, getting that letter through the door and feeling that sense of exclusion, of my child does not belong here. Because they did not fit those very narrow definitions of what was available in that school, they would have to travel elsewhere and seek their right to education. That exclusion is deeply baked into the system. We have to accept that and understand it before we can move on from it.
On Mr. Harris’s point, our north star here has got to be the child’s right to a high quality education in their local school. Dipping from crisis to crisis and playing around the edges with SNA allocations here and a little bit of therapy supports there is not going to cut it. We have to really accept that our communities have changed. We have wonderful diversity in every community in Ireland. We need to embrace that, see it as an opportunity and build an education system that is fit for purpose for every child who lives around that school, whether English is their first language or they have a disability, they should be able to go to that school and get the supports they need to do so.
It is about that unpicking. Let us not start with what the system tells us is available, which is a very narrow view of inclusive education, either you fit into the special class because there happens to be six children in your estate who can go to go to that local school or you do not get it, or you fit into the special school because of these narrow definitions and criteria or you do not get it. We have to accept that is not right. That is totally inequitable. We have to say that every child belongs in that local school and ask how we can build that school’s capacity to support that child. That is what a truly inclusive education system is. It is not fitting in but it is imagining what could be. We know there are examples of schools across the country doing this. We need to hear and learn from them and replicate that but through a children’s rights lens.
Mr. Harris made the point about a children’s advocacy service. We ran a research project very recently in collaboration with University of Galway, which really focused on the need for a children’s advocacy service for young people because their voice is missing so much in all this. It is so wonderful to be beside Ms McPhillips-Sheridan today. She told us how schools need to change. Just do that.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Well said. I thank Ms McDonagh and call Dr. Brady, please.
Dr. Fidelma Brady:
I thank the committee again for having us today. I will start by aligning with what Ms McDonagh has said about the system. The system needs to change. It is not us - it is not our children with Down’s syndrome, autism or learning disability. It is not okay for the system to make life-changing decisions for any of our children. I am specifically speaking today about children with Down’s syndrome - for our students at primary and post-primary levels. Mr. Harris spoke about the issues at post-primary schools for students with autism. The very same issues are there for students with Down’s syndrome. We have students with Down’s syndrome who are not permitted to participate in transition year, TY, because it is felt they could not cope with the work experience aspect. We still have schools that do not provide the leaving certificate applied, so there is literally no programme for students with Down’s syndrome or other intellectual disabilities to follow.
Someone spoke earlier about the periphery. We are always on the periphery. We are looking in at these roadmaps, etc. To echo what Mr. Harris said, the first we heard about the removal of complex educational needs was on the news. We had not been consulted or asked – it had not been discussed. As Mr. Harris said, that was kicking the can down the road because the Department of education is not really looking at the damage it is doing now. I look forward with hope to what the convention and conversation in education might bring for all of us. I hope it will bring us to see what the educational future would look like.
I will take the opportunity to say what our members feel we need to look at going forward. Ms McDonagh and I spoke earlier about how we need flexible integration between mainstream and special classes. We need to highlight the need for inclusive opportunities and specialised support. We cannot throw out the specialised support and say that is no good anymore - we need everything to be inclusive. We have to have both and marry both together. We need expanded services and therapy services and we need increased funding to get all these resources in place. We have already said we can put all the policies we want in place but unless we have resources to implement them and follow through on them, we are wasting our time.
Another issue with Down’s syndrome at post-primary school is that there are no vocational pathways for them. This whole one-size-fits-all attitude has to go at primary and post-primary, be it in special class, in mainstream school or in special school. No matter what the setting, the one-size-fits-all has to go, as Ms McDonagh put it so well. We need to look not at how we can get children into this class in this school but at what this school can do to accommodate the children in our catchment area. Only that will eventually ensure this inclusive education will be available for all. That is what we should all be aiming for.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Very well said. I thank everyone. Before we conclude, I hope members can hang on for two minutes at the end as there is a quick thing I want to deal with in private session. I thank Dr. Brady, Ms McDonagh, Mr. Harris and Ms McPhillips-Sheridan for coming in today and for being advocates for the people they represent. I thank Emily for self-advocating and for advocating for others in her friend group. I thank everyone for what their organisations are doing and for taking time out today. The discussion was very insightful. The committee is doing a whole body of work and their testimony will be part of what we are doing in that regard.
I thank the secretariat and the technical team in the room. Our next meeting will be at 12.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 25 March 2026 in private session. That will be followed by a meeting in public session.