Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)

I join my colleagues in expressing sympathy to the family of Patrick Gerard Murphy, who was a friend to a lot of us.

Today, I raise the issue of mild general learning disability schools. Department of Education and Youth officials have a widespread misunderstanding of exactly what they do and they are now being forced to redesignate. There are 29 mild schools in the country, 14 of which cater for children at a post-primary level. They are appropriate school settings for children with mild general learning disabilities and the prove of this is in the pudding with 95% of graduates from mild schools entering the workforce, compared to just 30% of those with a mild diagnosis in the general population who go on to enter the workforce.

One such school in my area is Scoil Eoin. It is a wonderful school with fantastic staff but it wants to keep its designation. It is really unfair and it is not inclusive to change the designation of mild schools to more complex schooling. Will the Taoiseach commit to ensuring these schools will not have their designation changed on them by the Department?

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