Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted the Deputy has raised this issue. I note his interest in it. This is a major priority for me and the entire Government. The Cabinet committee on education recently had a discussion about this very matter. I have undertaken to do two things between now and September, in conjunction with a number of Government colleagues, in particular the Ministers of State, Deputies Josepha Madigan and Anne Rabbitte.

The first thing I want to do is to examine the transition planning for students with disabilities when they leave school. I have been Minister for Health, as the Deputy knows. The discussion is often too narrow and concerns what health services a person will be provided with post school, rather than what skills or jobs he or she would like or what college he or she would like to go to. We are narrowing the conversation and sometimes almost suggesting that an educational journey must end when a person leaves school.

I am doing a piece of work with the Department of Education, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and my Department regarding what I am calling transition planning, career guidance and the like.

The second piece we are doing is a mapping exercise. There are some very good examples of good practice out there. Next week, for example, I will visit the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities. It is taking students with intellectual disabilities, and I have met them on a number of occasions already, straight from school and getting them into Trinity College, where they leave with an award and are linked in with employment. I met the National Learning Network in my constituency, which is also running a number of programmes through the Rehab Group. There are many examples of good practice which we are mapping out. By September I intend to report back to the Cabinet committee and, indeed, will be delighted to report back to the House on what more we can do.

We are developing a new national access plan. It is due to be developed this year. We have exceeded many targets in this area, but this is because the targets are under-ambitious. We are not measuring enough types of disability in that national access plan. We are out to consultation on it at the moment and will be developing the new national access plan during the course of the year. We need transition planning, a mapping out of what is there and then a scaling up of it.

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