Dan Boyle (Green Party)

I am putting the issues into context. It will certainly not happen tonight, as the Senator is aware.

I do not want to go back too far into history, but I am conscious that when the Opposition presents arguments in this way, it completely revises history. One of my first experiences as an elected public representative, when I was a city councillor, was my encounter with a woman whose situation was not helped by the policies of the then Government, nor has it been helped since. The woman's name was Marie O'Donoghue. Her son, Paul, was the mover of a seminal court case relating to the educational rights of people with disabilities in this State. It went to the highest court in the land and was opposed every inch of the way by a Labour Party Minister for Education and Science.

The experience of people with disabilities and special educational needs is something that shames all of us in the political system. It is an area in which we continually make mistakes. I am aware of the irony that given the budgetary context and the decisions that are made, I, as a Government Member, cannot change the situation that Marie O'Donoghue and her son now feel themselves to be in. This case was so seminal that it led to the subsequent Sinnott case which was taken to the Supreme Court in 2001.