Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Historically, the Department allocates resources to support children with special needs on the basis of categories of disabilities but for many years children with special needs were primarily educated in special schools or special classes. These schools and classes were designated as catering for a specific category of disability, but the report of the Special Education Review Committee, SERC, of 1993 made a wide range of recommendations on the level of resources that should be allocated to cater for children in different categories of special needs. The SERC report still provides much of the basis which underpins the current policy and provision.

The disability category set out in the SERC report formed the basis of resource allocations. That report did not identify Down's syndrome as a particular disability category for the allocation of resources and consideration of the categories of disability to be catered for under the GAM based on high incidence or less severe disability was centred mainly on the category of mild general learning disability detailed in the SERC report. I refer the Deputy then to my original reply.

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