Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It still gives room for individual schools to set up their own codes of practices and that might vary from school to school but every school is different. We heard yesterday at the Joint Committee on Education and Skills about schools using codes of practice and suspensions to deal with children with special needs. The children are in special classes because they have ASD or various other issues and codes of practice are used to deal with them in the same way as children who have genuinely broken the code of practice. An example given was smoking in the toilets. The same code of practice is being used to deal with children who have behavioural issues related to their special needs. The codes of practice are not being used in the positive and correct way they should be to reinforce authority or good behaviour. I will withdraw the amendment for now.