Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Once again, I thank Senator Lombard for bringing up this important matter. For parents and everybody else, our children's education is probably the most critical thing in their lives. By way of overall summary, the schools get ICT funding and broadband funding. They are supposed to cater for the needs of the children in their school. There may be situations where it is not possible to cater for the needs of specific children. That is where the SENOs come in. They look at the assistive technology scheme for individual cases.

The Senator made reference to departmental Circular 10/2013, which they are supposed to look at regarding that requirement. However, there is a review of the scheme under way. We are looking to have that concluded in the autumn. It will be going out for engagement with stakeholders. I suggest that Senator Lombard, regarding interaction with individual schools and pupils, would continue to survey his schools to see how they feel about the scheme, and that could feed into his submission to the Department.