Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this issue because this is probably the last week for something like this to be raised. It concerns a situation in a school, the new general data protection regulation, GDPR, and application form 3 for assistive technology. Because of the new rules introduced by the GDPR, the form has been taken off the website of the Department of Education and Skills. The form needs to be signed by a principal to be valid. Obviously, as we are coming into the school summer holidays on Friday, principals will not be available to sign the forms. There is the added difficulty that one needs an occupational therapist's report stating that the child needs the assistive technology to get access to this. However, the report will not be accepted without the form and now the application form seems to be unavailable. Perhaps this is an oversight in a technical area. I ask the Minister of State and the Department to accept the older form, perhaps until December, in order that parents are not in this situation. Some schools are saying to parents that they will have to purchase books for the first few weeks until the forms are processed. As this can take six to eight weeks, they are telling parents they must purchase books to be used in September and October. At that stage, they hope to have the forms processed and then the child will revert to using assistive technology. However, this seems absolutely ridiculous because they are putting a cost on parents for books the children will only need for a certain number of weeks. Clearly, this is just an issue with the GDPR. Surely some compromise could be found - for example, accepting the older form while everything else is updated. It is a very specific issue but I hope that makes sense.

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