Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

In the past half an hour the Opposition has been accused of attempting to misrepresent the facts, making a political football out of these children, and failing to understand that the way forward is in the mainstream classroom. I refute all of those allegations. I thank Deputy Brian Hayes for bringing this motion before the House.

I speak from experience of two primary schools affected in my constituency, both of which are in my home town in Birr, namely, St. Brendan's boys primary school and the Mercy primary school. There are 13 children in total in those two classes and of those, 12 had already tried the option proposed by the Minister, Deputy O'Keeffe. They had already been in mainstream school. Twelve of those children already had special needs assistance and resource hours and for 12 out of 13 children, it did not work.

We have been asked to speak from the heart and therefore I will outline the comments of parents who contacted me about this matter who I believe are the experts in terms of what happens to their children. The Government has argued that there are insufficient enrolments yet it is the very policies adopted by the Department of Education and Science that have ensured there are fewer children attending these classes.

I wish to make it clear that I support mainstream education and I am aware that the first choice of every parent for their children would be to have them in mainstream education-----

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