Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Rabbitte, to the House and thank her for taking this important Commencement matter.

Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting this matter on the Irish Sign Language, ISL, which I know is of deep personal interest to him. I thank the Minister of State for coming into this House, as I know she is personally invested in this issue. My colleague in the Dáil, Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan, has also regularly raised this issue. It is an important statement by these Houses on how we value those who are deaf or have hearing impairments as members of our society and how the legislation that is designed to support them is enforced.

Four years ago, on Christmas Eve 2017, we saw the signing into law of the Irish Sign Language Act. It was rightly recognised as transformative in the position of deaf people in Irish society. As Senators know, it followed a report from an Oireachtas committee that highlighted how deaf people were marginalised in Irish society. We have seen the contribution of those with hearing difficulties in Ireland. I refer to my Wexford colleague, Úna Walsh, who appeared on "The Late Late Show" on Friday. Over the years, many others who have hearing impairments have made significant contributions. I am rather concerned, as recently reported in the Irish Examinerby Donal O'Keeffe, that a survey by the National Disability Authority of a range State agencies found that 32%, or one third, of all public bodies were not aware of the Act and a further 20% were not aware of their responsibilities. Of the country's 16 education and training boards, only four responded to the NDA's survey.

Many tributes were paid in this House in April after we heard Andrew Geary talk about his son Callum to Ryan Tubridy. People could understand the passion Mr. Geary felt about ensuring that his son's rights, including his right to education, were vindicated. We have to ensure that right through our education system every young person, regardless of disability, has the opportunity to achieve his or her full potential. That continues to be a challenge. Given that many public bodies are not fully aware of their obligations under the Act or have not given them priority, I am concerned that there is not a real commitment to the legislation on the part of the State. It is also a worry to me that the Department of Education is not sufficiently invested to ensure that young deaf people have the necessary interpreters in place.ISL interpreting is highly specialised and, thus, it is wrong that the best the Department can offer is the salary of an SNA. The role of SNAs is important but in this case we are talking about highly qualified interpreters who are needed for educational purposes, in respect of which they must complete four years of third level education. We need to see a seriousness behind the supports that are given here.

How do we measure the success of this legislation? The success is that every young deaf person will feel that the State is responding and engaging with him or her and is allowing him or her to reach full potential. I am not convinced that this very noble Act is being taken sufficiently seriously by all arms of the State.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting this matter for discussion and I thank Senator Malcolm Byrne for bringing it forward. When tabling it, the Senator put it forward to the Department of Education, but it was deflected to me in my role as Minister of State with responsibility for disability. It is important to understand that while I will be giving an answer, the true pathway in terms of response lies within the control of the Department of Education.

As the Senator rightly stated, the Irish Sign Language Act 2017 was enacted on 24 December 2017 and commenced by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, on 23 December 2020. I am deeply invested in this legislation. It was the first legislation that the Minister and I signed together and, for that reason, it is important to me that there is complete follow-through.

The Act recognises the rights of users to use ISL as their native language and imposes a duty on all public bodies to provide ISL users with support when availing of statutory entitlements and services. Under section 10 of the Act, a report was commissioned earlier this year on the operation of the Act. The National Disability Authority was commissioned to produce that report, a draft of which I have received. The report notes that further progress is required to fully realise the ambition of the 2017 Act and a number of recommendations are made, which I will consider and pursue, as appropriate. The draft report is being finalised and I expect to be in a position to lay the completed document before this House in the coming weeks. I could not publish the draft at the time I received it because it had to go out to all relevant Departments for observations, the reasons for which I totally understand.

Enabling students with special educational needs, including those students who are deaf or hard of hearing, to receive an education appropriate to their needs is an ongoing priority for this Government. Section 5 of the ISL Act requires the Minister for Education to: establish a scheme for the provision of ISL classes for families of children who are deaf; establish a scheme to provide ISL support for children who are attending school and whose primary language is ISL; ensure that there are a sufficient number of placements for the training of teachers of children who are deaf or hard of hearing; and determine the minimum qualifications of teachers of children who are deaf or hard of hearing, where practicable and necessary, in order to ensure the provision of education to children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

There is work yet to be done to fully realise the ambition behind the Act. Nevertheless, there are supports in place for students. It is important to recognise that elsewhere the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, published a comprehensive review of the SNA scheme on 20 May 2018. The Department has noted the contents of the report, as required under the Act. That report recommends that the ISL qualified assistant should be put in place to support deaf students whose primary language is ISL and that this should be aligned to the requirements of the Act. I am told that the recommendation with regard to the introduction of the Irish language scheme is under consideration in the Department of Education. In plain English, the NCSE has identified this need and the Department is aware of it. This matter has been ongoing since 2017. We have a number of children throughout the country who need this provision. Everything that we do in regard to disabilities has to be about inclusion, integration, participation and equality.Unfortunately, a cohort of young people are marginalised because we are not allowing them to reach their full potential by providing them with the equipment and an individual to support them in participating.

Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State. I know her passion for this area and exactly what she feels. That passion is something that we need across all elements of government because, with the greatest of respect, the Minister of State cannot do this on her own. In the education space in particular, this has to be about focusing on the individual young person and what it is we need to put in place to ensure that he or she can reach his or her full potential. I encourage the Minister of State to continue being ambitious, but the message has to go out clearly to all elements of government that the era of decisions being taken without the interests of those with disabilities being at the top of the agenda has to end.

I welcome the Minister of State's comments and I look forward to the publication of the NDA's report, but the message to all Departments, in particular the Department of Education, is that the approach needs to change.

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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Before I invite the Minister of State to respond, will she clarify whether the Department is in compliance with the Act at the moment? If she cannot provide the answer now, perhaps she could on another day.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State.