Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's response. I also thank him and the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, who was present on the day, for not opposing my Down Syndrome (Equality of Access) Bill, which is relevant to this debate. I take the Minister's point about the legal case.

My objective is that all children with Down's syndrome and low-incidence disability are given the proper resource teaching hours. Children with Down's syndrome should be guaranteed to receive the maximum level of resource hours. Children with a physical disability get resource teaching time of at least two hours 33 minutes and up to four hours 15 minutes for children with autism. All young children with Down's syndrome going into national school should get the maximum resource hours because they can do a lot of work with them and achieve many changes which are very positive for their futures.

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