Mary O'Rourke (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate and to explain what I know about ABA. I am a patron of Saplings school in Mullingar, having opened that school with the co-founders three years ago. ABA works for young people, but it is part of a total range of provision for children with special needs. I have seen ABA at first hand and I know it enables children to learn because it is a behavioural system that works on a one-to-one basis. That child learns how to learn, behave, have social skills and become a child with potential and a future. I thank my colleagues for allowing me to speak for one or two minutes. Whatever lingering animosity there is within the Department of Education and Science should be removed forthwith and the provision of ABA should become an essential feature of the spectrum of provisions for children with special needs, as it is already becoming.

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