Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If it was in compliance with the Act, I would not be here taking a Commencement matter this morning. Perhaps that is the best way to answer the question.

At the end of the day, we have young people whose parents are their advocates. We all talk about early intervention through speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, but we also talk about early intervention in education. Under the access inclusion model, AIM, programme and the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme, the young person down in Mayo was able to access an AIM support worker to ensure that that little person could participate in the early years setting. It was unfortunate that, when he transitioned from the early years setting into education, he did not get the same approach with a person who was qualified in ISL. However, the person transferred over at the rate of an SNA, which has to do with the other part of the Senator's question.

There has to be a full and comprehensive acknowledgment of the role that the ISL interpreter plays in delivering communication within the classroom in support of the teacher. We should get to the stage where, if there is an ISL interpreter in the classroom, the children can look either way, left or right, to the teacher or the ISL interpreter, to understand what is being taught. That is a whole-of-class and whole-of-community approach.

My colleagues, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, are working hard on this matter. Perhaps it is officialdom that we sometimes need to push harder in the delivery of our ambitions.