Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)

Hi, Cara. We have not had a chance to meet yet, but thank you for everything you are doing. I hope to pop out to you tomorrow morning to say hello.

I have met so many people in the disability community and in my work in the rights and equality space who, like Cara, have had to become advocates and experts in rights and equality simply to realise their own rights because the State is failing them so badly and because they are not able to access the appropriate services, the seirbhísí cuí, that they should simply have available to them by virtue of the legal status provided for in our Constitution. Time and again, the onus is just put back on citizens to take up the slack where the State is letting them down. One point I do not want to be lost in this debate - there has been an awful lot of discussion about this today - is the fact that when these rights are denied, in so many instances we then see the State fight with all its legal might against those families who are simply trying to realise their rights. That alone is something this Government must look at. I do not know that there is a litigation policy. I have been advised that there is not necessarily a policy that sets in place how the State determines whether or not it will bring such legal might against vulnerable families who are simply trying to realise their rights. Where there is not one there should be one, and it should recognise the power dynamic of the State having a lot more legal power to bring to those battles and what it is doing by fighting tooth and nail against people who are simply trying to realise those rights.

Many of those people are people in my constituency, people who have been in contact with me and my team, who tell us about how they have simply had to put their lives on hold and how they have had to reshape their whole families around the fact that their children cannot access assessments of need or the appropriate services. As we have heard from many speakers today, this is of course simply the first hurdle because assessment of need is only the thing that allows us to get into the queues for the many services that are required for people to participate fully in society. I was really disheartened earlier to hear the Taoiseach's response during Leaders' Questions because it seemed to be simply about numbers. The argument is that the numbers are so overwhelming that the Government and the State cannot respond to this. It just seems to lack such vision and ambition as to what inclusive education should be. This is not special education we are looking for; we are looking for an education system that recognises and meets the needs of everybody within it.

In 1966 Donogh O'Malley announced free education, and a year later it was brought in. He was a Fianna Fáil Minister, it was an unannounced speech and that was transformation that happened like that. This Government is lacking that vision, that ambition and the commitment that is required to transform our education system into one that is inclusive.

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