Joint Committee on Disability Matters díospóireacht -
Thursday, 27 Apr 2023

Rights-Based Approach and Disability Legislation: Discussion

An Cathaoirleach

Apologies have been received from Senator O'Loughlin and Deputy Murnane O'Connor. I thank Deputy Hourigan, who has left the committee, for her contribution. I welcome Deputy Leddin, who has joined the committee, and wish him well in his role.

The purpose of the meeting is a discussion of the rights-based approach and disability legislation. From the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, I welcome: Mr. Colm Ó Conaill, assistant secretary; Mr. Niall Brunell, principal officer, disability equality policy team; Mr. Jason Doran, assistant principal officer, children's services team; and Ms Eithne Fitzgerald, disability adviser, disability and youth division. From the Department of Education, I welcome: Ms Martina Mannion, assistant secretary; Mr. Martin McLoughlin, principal officer, special education; Mr. Frank Hanlon, principal officer, special education; and Mr. Brendan Doody, principal officer. We look forward to our discussion with them.

All witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. If they are directed by the Chair to cease giving evidence that could be of a potentially defamatory nature, it is imperative they comply with such a direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that we should not comment on, criticise or makes charges against persons outside the House, or an official, in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Members, constitutionally, have to be within the confines of Leinster House to participate in public meetings.

I call Mr. Ó Conaill to make his opening statement.

Mr. Colm Ó Conaill

I am delighted to be here with colleagues from our Department, particularly following the transfer of function of responsibility for policy and legislation oversight relating to specialist disability services from the Department of Health at the start of March. It was a long and complex process, but we are delighted the transfer has happened. We are very keen to get a programme of work under way and build our division to undertake this.

I thank the Chairperson and members of the committee for inviting us to discuss the importance of a human-rights approach to disability matters. This committee recently issued a thoughtful report, Aligning Disability Services with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which our Department is examining. Since the transfer on 1 March, we have been working to build a more integrated human rights-based perspective across our roles in co-ordinating disability policy and practice across Departments as the focal point for the convention, and now with responsibility for oversight of services and supports to people with more complex disabilities. The location of disability policy and specialist community-based disability services in a single Department is a significant opportunity to strengthen strategic policy development and move us closer to achieving a more equal society. Our objective is to progressively transform disability services, and provide consistent levels of support and access to services for people with disabilities.

The centralisation of the equality, health and social care dimensions of support for people with disabilities within the Department will facilitate the further transition from a medical model of support towards a more holistic, human rights-based approach. We will also work to further embed the principle, enshrined in the Disability Act 2005, that mainstream public services are designed and delivered in a way that includes people with disabilities who can enjoy the same rights to services as other citizens, an approach that can be summarised in the phrase "mainstream first". We look forward to working with colleagues across Government to ensure this mainstream first approach becomes seamlessly embedded into all decisions made.

Two important pieces of work will drive this agenda. The first is the preparation of a successor whole-of-government strategy to the national disability inclusion strategy, which will be focused on advancing implementation of the convention. This will build on the work done to date, including on the comprehensive employment strategy. We will build on what we have heard to date in consultations with individuals with disabilities and their representatives organisations, on a further consultation that will be undertaken, and on what the evidence shows. It will be crucial that this national disability strategy is developed and delivered with strong whole-of-government support, where all public bodies play their part.

Second, securing agreement to significantly increased investment in disability services with the adoption of an action plan for disability services will continue the work to address deficits in the level of provision of services and supports set out in the disability capacity review, published in 2021, along with strategic refocusing on reform to deliver best impact. The committee's recent report highlighted the impact of service shortages on the lives of people with disabilities. We want to work to strengthen both the quantity and quality of supports people receive and to embed a human rights-based approach, which will give service users greater flexibility, choice and control and support them to live ordinary lives in ordinary places.

In all of this work we are informed by the provisions of the convention, and Ireland’s obligation as a signatory, to deliver on civil and political rights and to progressively implement economic, social and cultural rights. A milestone in this regard is the coming into force yesterday of assisted decision-making legislation that gives effect to the provisions of Article 12 of the convention. This repeals legislation from the 19th century and replaces it with a modern human rights-based framework, based on the presumption of capacity, and providing for tiered levels of support to enable people to exercise their capacity. It substitutes the principle of the individual’s will and preference for what was a paternalistic best interests paradigm. It replaces the all-or-nothing approach in the wards of court system with a graduated level of support to individuals who need support around particular decisions at a particular time.

In its letter of invitation, the committee emphasised the need to ensure appropriate economic and social supports are there to achieve equal access, participation and outcomes in all areas of service provision and employment, including independent needs assessment, services, advocacy, and redress. This is being advanced on a number of different fronts. These are: obligations in Part 3 of the Disability Act to include people with disabilities in the mainstream services of public bodies, and work to ensure those services are accessible to people with disabilities in terms of services, premises and information; cross–departmental actions on disability set out in the national disability inclusion strategy, which was co-ordinated by this Department, and plans are in train for a successor plan to advance delivery of the convention to promote fuller inclusion of people with disabilities in society and tackle some of the practical barriers to its achievement; the comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities which this Department coordinates; anti-discrimination legislation in the area of employment and access to services; and delivery of community-based disability services and supports, based on a human rights-based model of service and on individual need, not on diagnosis.

A key objective is to grow the resources to deliver disability support services in order that individuals and their families can rest assured that the supports they require will be there when they need them. It is acknowledged that there is a significant shortfall in the quantum of disability support services, as outlined in the Disability Capacity Review to 2032.

Work is well advanced in our Department on a disability action plan to work in a planned way to tackle these deficits, and to tackle the constraints such as the available workforce with the requisite skills to support individuals. We also want to focus on strategic changes that enable us deliver better for people with disabilities, for example a focus on early intervention, and examination of new models of residential care. There will also be important learning from the pilot on personalised budgets for people with disabilities.

On advocacy, which was mentioned in the letter of invitation, the Comhairle Act 2000 provides for mainstream advice and advocacy through the independent Citizens Information Board. Funding for this body is delivered through the Minister for Social Protection. Like all public bodies, the Citizens Information Board is required to deliver services to people with disabilities as part of its mainstream offering.

With regard to the new remit of this Department for disability services, access to services is based on a needs assessment rather than a diagnosis. Staff in the HSE and our funded disability service providers work with individuals and their families in a holistic way to ascertain their needs and the supports they require. Preparation of individual person-centred plans are mandated in the regulations for residential disability services, for example, and similar guidance underpins the delivery of adult day services through the interim standards for day services. Access to services is not dependent on a statutory assessment. For example, a great many children enter children’s disability services directly rather than via the statutory assessment of need process set up under Part 2 of the Disability Act. A non-statutory process is in train since 2015 to assess young school leavers for entry into specialist disability day services, and to determine the level of support they require.

Part 2 of the Disability Act 2005 provides for an independent system of statutory assessments of need. Such independent assessments are not a panacea. In a situation where the children’s disability network teams, CDNTs, are carrying a high number of vacancies in respect of sanctioned posts, the staff resources required to undertake the statutory assessment process are competing directly with the resources required to deliver therapies to children, and the legal obligation to deliver assessments can mean that assessments are prioritised in practice over delivery of interventions. There can be a trade-off between delivery of necessary supports and services and the operation of the independent assessment when resources are as finite as they are at present.

The roadmap for children’s disability services is being finalised by the HSE and will chart a way forward to maximise the resources we can mobilise to support early intervention for children. The committee's recent report mentions the importance of a national disability awareness-raising strategy. We are happy to say that such an awareness-raising campaign, with a focus on the equal human rights of people with disabilities, is currently being finalised and will be in place very shortly.

In conclusion, the integration of responsibility for disability equality policy, for driving the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, across government, and for specialist disability supports services, will provide a new impetus for the policies, investments and reforms needed to make equal inclusion and participation of people with disabilities in our society a reality. While we have some solid foundations, there is still a long way to go, and we look forward to engaging with the joint committee as we continue this work.

Ms Martina Mannion

I thank the Cathaoirleach and the committee for the invitation to be here today to represent the Department of Education. I am an assistant secretary general in the Department and I have responsibility for special education and inclusion. I am accompanied today by three of my colleagues who work as principal officers in the special education section across a range of policy and operational issues.

The Department of Education’s policy in respect of supporting children and young people with special educational needs is very clear. It is based on a child-centred approach to the provision of education. Our role is to ensure that all children with special educational needs are supported to access an education appropriate to their needs. This means that children with special educational needs should be supported to the greatest degree possible in mainstream settings with additional teaching and care supports to allow them to achieve their potential. In circumstances where children with special educational needs require more specialised interventions, we ensure access to special school or special class places. As a Department we recognise that these more specialist supports and settings have an important role to play and in line with parental wishes, we have opened hundreds of additional special classes both at primary and post primary level in recent years as well as seven new special schools.

It is worth noting that while much of the public focus has been on the additional special school and special class places, the vast majority of children with special educational needs are educated in mainstream settings in the Irish education system. It is estimated that almost 98% of all children with special educational needs attend mainstream settings. The benefits of mainstream education are known and recognised. The Department is working hard to ensure that inclusion is at the heart of what we do, and where full participation in an inclusive education setting is available to every student, which meets their individual need. Our schools are where we nurture and develop the future of our society and we know that schools are a welcoming and supportive environment for children, especially children with special educational needs. The Department expends considerable resources annually in order to enable schools to support the inclusion of all students.

In the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of children and young people with special educational needs, particularly in the context of autism. What is happening in Ireland is not unique. There is recognition internationally of growth in the area of special educational need. The Department is very aware of this. We are proactive in working with all stakeholders, including parents and advocacy groups, to ensure we are meeting that need in a compassionate and inclusive way in schools across the country. We have responded to that need by providing significant additional supports to mainstream classes and, as I outlined earlier, by the provision of additional special school and special class places. We are also working on a number of policy and resource initiatives which, as they are rolled out, will further enhance the educational experience of children with special educational needs.

This year, the Department will spend in excess of €2.6 billion, or over 27% of its budget, supporting children with special educational needs. This is the highest ever provision of funding by the State in the area of special education. By the end of this year, there will be more than 40,000 special education teachers and special needs assistants, SNAs, working in our schools who are specifically dedicated to supporting students with special educational needs.

The discussion points outlined in the invitation to attend today’s meeting reference the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act 2004 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. In that regard, it is worth highlighting for the committee a number of recent developments, the outcomes of which are likely to influence the way in which our education system develops into the future. As the committee will be aware, the Department of Education is undertaking a review of the EPSEN Act. I thank the committee for the submission it has made as part of the public consultation process on the review. The Department has consulted far and wide as part of this review. An online survey element of the public consultation process has recently closed and we received 28,000 responses from parents, students, schools and other interested stakeholders. This is a fantastic response and shows the public interest in this area. The Department is now working to analyse these responses so we can commence the next stage of the legislative review process.

The EPSEN legislation has been in place for almost 20 years. There have been many significant changes and developments to policy relating to the education of children with special educational needs in that time. One of the most important of these changes relates to how children access educational supports in schools. When the legislation was first introduced, assessments were needed to ensure access to educational supports for all children with special educational needs. That is no longer the case. Since 2017 educational supports for children in mainstream settings are provided through special educational teachers and special needs assistants who are already assigned to schools, with the option for additional supports as required. This has moved us away from a diagnosis-led model of support to a needs-led model, which is very much in line with the UNCRPD and is a child-centred model of provision. As so much has changed since the introduction of EPSEN in terms of policy and provision, we believe this review of the legislation to ensure that it is up to date, fully operational and reflective of the lived experiences of students and families is a very important and timely decision that will assist us in providing advice to Ministers and the Government on the future direction of legislation in this sensitive area of education.

When the review is complete, we will have a clearer idea of the wider public and stakeholder view. Like any consultation process, the outcomes can vary, from maintaining the status quo, amending or commencing existing legislation, or developing new legislation. Any legislative changes proposed will require careful consideration, detailed analysis, pre-legislative scrutiny and consideration of the wider Government legislative programme.

Regardless of the outcome, the Department is committed to ensuring that children with special educational needs are fully supported in our education system.

On the further development of an inclusive education system, in January, the Department received policy advice from the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, on future provision in respect of special classes and special schools. The policy advice will need to be considered fully in order that in the long term we will continue to build a more inclusive education system while also ensuring that the needs of our most complex students in special schools and classes are being fully met. The policy advice is currently being considered by the Minister and the relevant Minister of State. Once we have the outcome of that consideration, there will be further engagement with all stakeholders, including public representatives, on this matter.

In keeping with the desire to take a child-centred approach to the provision of education, the Department of Education and the NCSE have recently been involved in the provision of a number of additional initiatives for students with special educational needs. These include: the expansion of the summer programme; the funding of projects to support the transition of students with special educational needs after they finish school; additional funding for assistive technology; provision of dedicated supports for children who use Irish Sign Language as their primary means of communication; the introduction of a new nursing support pilot programme; the development and piloting of the school inclusion model; additional funding for the recruitment of 160 new staff by the NCSE, to include more special education needs organisers, SENOs, and advisers; and additional funding for the recruitment of 54 additional educational psychologists by the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPs. All of these measures are aimed at supporting children with special educational needs in order to ensure that they can access education in the most inclusive way possible.

We have worked hard to ensure that we are providing a supportive, inclusive education system for all children, particularly those with special educational needs. While huge progress has been made we are always aware of the challenges faced by individual children and their families and we are continuing to work with the NCSE and all education stakeholders to address any issues as they come to light. I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to outline our work to date in this important area. My colleagues and I look forward to engaging with committee members during today’s meeting and addressing any questions that they might have.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Ms Mannion. We will begin by going to the committee's Vice Chair, Deputy Tully.

Deputy Pauline Tully

I will begin with some questions for the officials from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and then I will come to those from the Department of Education. Disability services for children is a major issue that is highlighted all the time. The officials outlined some measures they are taking to try and address the problem in this regard. We know there is a shortage of staff, but what emergency measures are being put in place to deal with children who require services now? Many of these children cannot afford to wait. It is going to totally undermine their quality of life if they do not get the services now. This needs to be treated as an emergency. There are thousands of children on waiting lists for assessments and services. Even those who have been assessed are waiting for the interventions. They are not receiving them. As I said yesterday at the meeting of the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, some parents have received letters from CDNTs that do not contain dates as to when interventions will be provided.

The other thing is that a large part of the UNCRPD is focused on the right to independent living. Quite a number of people are still living in congregated settings. In addition, quite a number of people under 65 years of age are living in nursing homes. There are not enough suitable houses for people to live in the community. It is not just the houses, however, it is also the all-round support. People need a personal assistance service in order to be able to live independently. That is not done on a needs basis at the moment. It seems to be done on a financial basis. Every person needs to be looked at to see what their needs are and how many hours they require but it is also about access to employment, education and having a social life. A huge part of that is about accessible transport. It is all-round supports that are needed. What are the plans for improving independent living and emergency measures for children?

Mr. Colm Ó Conaill

It was an oversight on my part, but I intended to introduce my colleagues who are here. Mr. Brunell heads up our disability equality policy team. Mr. Doran is from our children’s services team. Ms Fitzgerald is our disability adviser and expert on all things relating to disability. I will let Mr. Doran come in on children’s services and the emergency side of things.

Independent living involves a very broad scope. There are two main aspects the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman and the Minster of State, Deputy Rabbitte, outlined it to the members who attended the meeting of the Select Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth relating to the Estimates. The first of the two aspects to which I refer is that we need significantly increased investment. There is a large scale of unmet need that is set out in the disability capacity review. The Deputy’s example of personal assistance is crucial to supporting people to live independent lives. The Government has put in increases in the area of personal assistance in recent years. There have been significant increases between home support and personal assistance, but there is no doubt that there is also significant unmet need. We are engaging with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. This afternoon we will have our first meeting with it in respect of the action plan. We need a significant increase in investment in this regard.

Another important thing is to change the way services are delivered. In fairness to the HSE and its partners, a process and a programme of change is under way in the context of transforming lives. We need to continue that and accelerate it in order to make it more person centred. It is there in day services becoming more person centred and individualised; personalised budgets were mentioned. It is also there in the context of personal assistance and the need to increase the supports relating thereto. There is a broad range, but the two key pillars for us relate to the action plan and the new national disability strategy, and how we can accelerate implementation of UNCRPD in the follow-on strategy to the existing national disability inclusion strategy, particularly after the transfer of function on 1 March.

I will ask Mr. Doran to address the points on emergency care on the children’s side.

Mr. Jason Doran

There is no doubt but that the situations in the CDNTs is at a critical stage. Every Deputy and Senator here will have heard that from people. We certainly hear it in the Department. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has heard it too.

On immediate measures, the Deputy will be aware of the finalisation of the roadmap. The latter contains a significant number of actions across seven different categories, one of which is recruitment and retention. We are focusing in on that as the key enabler in getting therapies for children. There are a number of specific actions in that. One that will be of assistance more immediately is a working group involving our Department, the Departments of Health, Education and Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to examine short-term courses that could upskill people to assist with CDNTs. Potentially, these would be conversion courses for SNAs and assistants with therapy grades to upskill in those areas as the most immediate measure we can implement in order to provide some relief to overstretched and understaffed CDNTs.

As part of the measures that were undertaken last year through the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, we were able to add a number of key disciplines onto the critical skills list which had not been there before. These are being actively recruited for at the moment. The disciplines in question are occupation therapy, physiotherapy, psychology and speech and language therapy. They were added in June 2022. That broadens the scope for international recruitment beyond the EU and gives wider access to the pool of candidates.

Mr. Colm Ó Conaill

I will make a final point in respect of the emergency side when it comes to children. There is a degree of urgency around this, and a degree of importance being placed on this that we have seen since Bernard Gloster took over as CEO of the HSE on 6 March. Our Secretary General, Mr. Kevin McCarthy, met with the new CEO of the HSE and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. Most of the discussion has focused on the progressing disability service, PDS, roadmap, children’s issues and how we advance them. There is email contact every second day at very senior levels. There is very intensive engagement with the HSE on finalising a credible, strong roadmap. That is not stopping immediate action being taken either, but we will see decisive action under the roadmap that is being finalised urgently on the part of the HSE, and with strong input from Ministers and from the Department.

Deputy Pauline Tully

Okay. Emergency measures are required, and as I said, parents have lost faith in the PDS model. They are not going to change their view on that unless they see truly constructive changes that are going to help their children. I hope we will see positive change quickly.

On the overall measures regarding independent living, I am aware it is across a number of Departments, so I suppose the Minister of State will have to have oversight over them all. Some Departments think that they have no input into disability and that because we have a dedicated Minister of State it is up to her, but that is not the case. Departments need to be held accountable on that.

There needs to be a move towards inclusive education. That is what is required under the UNCRPD. However, we see more special classes and special schools being established. The officials say the vast majority of students with additional needs attend mainstream school and the resources are provided, but that is not always the case. I am hearing about schools looking for additional SNAs being made jump through hoops to get them. It is quite a difficult process and needs to be made easier. We must also ensure the special classes or schools are in every area because I am seeing students having to travel up to 50 km to get to the nearest special class or school. The two aspects are connected because where students are not getting the supports in the community it is having an impact on their schooling. From what I hear about the social inclusion model it is a good model, but it is still only at pilot stage. It really needs to be assessed. It has a positive impact and could be rolled out more. Are there plans to assess that pilot and roll it out more? It would have a huge impact on children's needs.

It was also said a diagnosis is not required to get access to additional resources. That is true in mainstream, but to get into a special class or school a child needs a diagnosis and because of the backlog in the assessment of needs we are seeing children not getting an appropriate school place. There must be more co-operation between the two Departments on how to overcome that. If there were enough places, schools would not need to request a diagnosis. They could just do a needs assessment and the child who needs the supports could be taken in. Are we any closer to doing that?

On restraint guidelines and the use of restraint in schools, I have heard some harrowing stories about the use of it, and of seclusion. Seclusion should be banned outright. Teachers and principals need guidelines on when and how they should use restraint and it should only be to protect the child or protect others. Are those guidelines finalised? I am aware there was work being done on them, but I think that was in 2019. There are no signs of those four years later.

Ms Martina Mannion

I thank the Deputy. I will cover one or two of the points and hand over to colleagues for the others. On children travelling to special schools and classes and the provision of additional such classes and places, we have been conscious over recent years that there have not been enough classes and places. For the last two years we have been doing intensive engagement with the planning and building unit within the Department of Education and with the NCSE. The net result of that is we envisage we are going to continue to open the same level of special classes at primary level as we have over the last three years and we are going to need to double the special class provision at post-primary level over the next three years. We have opened, as I said, seven new special schools. The idea is that we will have a better geographic spread. Back in October, the Minister and the Department wrote to all post-primary schools to say they would all be required to take special classes in the coming years. The work we are doing is to ensure there is a good spread across the country, for the very reason we do not want people to have to travel. That gives a broad outline. We will start to see the opening of those new special classes across the country. So many new ones have opened for September 2022 and will again for September 2023.

On the SNA allocation, there will be almost 20,000 SNAs in our school system across the special schools and classes. The important thing with that is there is an exceptional review process. Mr. Hanlon might talk a little about how that is being managed in schools and how we have tried to streamline it. Mr. Doody might talk a little about how we support positive behaviours in schools and also the work we are doing on the restraint guidelines.

Mr. Frank Hanlon

On the SNA allocation, the circular issued this morning for the allocations for September. We have been talking to schools and stakeholders. We got it out a month earlier than last year and we continue to work on streamlining it as much as possible. In mainstream and across the board we have seen over 1,000 additional SNAs per year being added into the system over the last three years, so there are a lot of new SNAs going into it. We are working with the NCSE on streamlining the review process because, as the Deputy pointed out, that is the critical point in being able to access the resources in the most efficient way possible. There has been some move towards that since last year and it has meant more reviews could take place. Looking forward to September, we have been talking to some of the schools and especially the ones with the new and developing posts where there is a need. We are looking to further streamline that process with the NCSE. We have been in discussions with it and the management bodies about that.

Mr. Brendan Doody

I will reference the school inclusion model, SIM, if that is okay, and then talk about the behaviour guidelines. The Deputy is right to say there are huge challenges for young people associated with having to travel significant distances. It highlights for us the importance of building the capacity of all schools to meet the needs of children with more complex education needs. That is the fundamental principle upon which the SIM programme is based. The SIM is about developing teacher capacity. It is about including all students in school provision. It is operating, as the Deputy knows, on a pilot basis in 75 schools in CHO 7. The concept or notion of scaling it to national level is one we are exploring. As recently as yesterday afternoon I had a meeting with the NCSE around this. However, there is a huge contextual piece for us in that, namely, we simply do not have a ready-made supply of language therapists, occupational therapists, OTs, or psychologists to fulfil what would be required were we to scale it up to national level. That is not unique to Ireland, by the way. I am on the board of the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education and at a recent meeting it was the topic of discussion for every country. Therapists simply do not exist in the numbers we would want.

The notion of scaling the SIM to national level in order to build the capacity of schools and teachers is certainly on our agenda and something we would like to develop, but it is going to take time. As our colleagues from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth were talking about, there is work going on in respect of building the workforce in that area, so it is not going to happen in the immediate future. In the meantime, the NCSE held a showcase event for schools that are participating in the SIM in Naas a while back. It showed how positive an intervention it is when schools feel they are building their capacity to meet the needs of children from a more informed perspective. It is not that speech and language therapists, SLTs, and OTs have all the answers, but it is that notion of collaborative engagement and building the capacity of teachers. That is what we want from that work.

On the behaviour guidance, everything the Department has done over many years in respect of behaviour has been situated in supporting positive behaviour, developing school culture and a positive school climate. Though they are dated, if one goes back all the way, the 2008 guidelines on codes of behaviour are situated in that space. They are currently being updated by Tusla's education support service, but all the other materials and documents that have been put out into the system, including the NEPS guidelines on students with emotional and behaviour difficulties and the well-being framework, are all located in that area of positive engagement and developing school culture. Early intervention has been really important.

We recognise there are circumstances where, everything else having been tried, some situations will require an intervention as a measure of last resort. The Deputy mentioned seclusion and restraint. We have guidelines almost ready to go. We had a stakeholder consultation on the guidelines last week. It was a positive engagement.

An enormous amount of work has gone into the development of the guidelines. We have involved schools in that process. We have involved school principals working in special schools and in mainstream contexts and so on, in respect of the guidelines and their views around these issues. We are very clear that seclusion is not an appropriate measure in any circumstance and that will be made very clear in the guidelines when they are published. Under no circumstances should schools use seclusion as a measure or as an intervention to manage behaviour. It is always negative and should therefore never, ever be used. However, there is differentiation between seclusion and a student who might seek to have a period away from a class. The student might recognise their own triggers, for example, and with an SNA or they may have developed their own capacity in that space, they recognise that they need to go to a sensory room or into the corner of the classroom just to take, and I am loath to use the words "time out" but the concept is stepping away from what is live for them at that moment. That differentiation is made clearly in the guidelines.

Obviously, in an ideal world we would not need guidelines on restraint. We recognise that as a measure of very last resort, a restraint will sometimes be needed. I happened to be in Kilkenny Castle last week on my way back from Waterford and I saw a mother very calmly and very successfully restrain her 15- or 16-year-old son who may have had some special needs. She restrained him very competently, de-escalated the situation and ensured that the young person was calmed. That is the type of intervention that is required. There are times when, if there is imminent danger to the student or to those working in the school, it is necessary to apply a restraint. We are really conscious of the fact that we are developing guidelines and will make those available to the system but we also recognise that simply putting those guidelines out into the system is not really sufficient. For the small number of occasions when schools will have to use those guidelines, they need training. We are engaging with the NCSE on developing elements of training. The first level of that is obviously awareness and we will support schools, and maybe special schools in particular, because they are the schools that are telling us most that they need these supports. They are saying they need them now and not next year. We will have engagement with special and mainstream schools to develop awareness of the guidelines and then we will need to train them. We will be securing a training support service for schools in managing those particular circumstances and how and when to apply a restraint. Then the guidelines make it very clear what you have to do when you have had to apply a restraint, and how you reflect on the situation. There are templates to complete at the level of the school which are all designed to try to ensure the teachers will reflect on what caused the situation, what the trigger was, whether there were things they need to amend, or supports they need to provide differently, and so on and so forth. There is a lot of work done by the expert group that has developed this. The Deputy is right that it was commissioned in 2019 but unfortunately Covid-19 intervened with an awful lot of things, this included. However, the group is very nearly there at this point. I would hope that certainly by early in the next school year we will have them published along with the training plan.

Deputy Frankie Feighan

The witnesses are very welcome. I am glad of the occasion to thank them on the record for the great work that they do. I was always aware of them in the last 20 years a Member of the Oireachtas and a member of local authorities, but when one is in the Department of Health for two and a half years as a Minister of State, you realise you have people who watch your back and who are absolutely brilliant. We are very fortunate to have them. I always make the analogy with when I was in business and over in the chamber of commerce and they could be CEOs of any multinational and so I thank them very much. Getting around to it, I thank them for coming before the committee today. I am not referring to any other situation but people like the witnesses who come in here should be treated with respect and dignity and given due process. I know we can ask hard questions but if I am a politician or a member of the public and I go somewhere, I expect to be treated like that as well. I thank them for coming in. We will not be too hard on them or anything like that because they are doing great work. I worked with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and she was formidable. She was a very good colleague and I know that you are doing great work.

Can Mr. Ó Conaill elaborate a bit more on the transition from a medical model of support towards a basic human rights-based approach, with people with disabilities enjoying the same rights to services as other citizens? Will he also outline a bit more on the awareness campaign focusing on the equal human rights of people with disabilities, which is being finalised?

The issue was raised that 98% of all children with special education needs attend mainstream settings. I am aware of other settings mentioned on a regional basis. Is there any chance of getting to 100%? I know you probably need a few intervention schools that provide that extra special intervention as well.

When does the Department think the review of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 will be available? It may have been said but I just did not get whether it will be weeks or months. It is great to see that there were 28,000 responses from parents, students and schools to the survey. This will be a huge amount of information and it will be very valuable.

What exactly is needed for the expansion of the summer programme? I have seen now where there are, I will not say unintended consequences, but we have so many SENOs and the 54 additional educational psychologists. Is it difficult to recruit these or where are the people being recruited coming from? Are they coming from other sectors, from outside the country or from other jurisdictions? Will the witnesses elaborate on that? I thank them again for the great work they do.

Mr. Colm Ó Conaill

I thank the Deputy for his kind words there. I was the head of corporate and health when we worked with him during very interesting times in the pandemic. I thank him very much and we appreciate the warm words.

The two questions he asked for our Department are actually interlinked. The awareness-raising in relation to changing attitudes and removing barriers is part of a move from a medical model to a more human rights-based approach. I will ask Mr. Brunell to talk about the awareness-raising campaign which is on his side of the house, but first, maybe Ms Fitzgerald could talk a bit more about and elaborate on the further move we want to see from the medical model to a human rights-based approach.

Ms Eithne Fitzgerald

I thank the Deputy. The Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities, which reported in 1996, very much emphasised the move away from the medical model to a social model of disability where we focus on what barriers people face and what supports they need to be fully included in society. That model goes across the board and is not just something that happens in the Department of Health or in the health service. Again, the commission said it was not going to go down the road of diagnosis or deal with particular forms of disability. Instead, it was going to deal across all forms of impairment. That understanding would have been incorporated into the Disability Act 2005 and its definition of disability, which is about a substantial restriction in people's capacity to participate by virtue of an impairment, rather than the much more medically based definition that is in the Equal Status and Employment Equality Acts. That has very much guided the way the disability support services are run. It is run on a needs-based approach rather than a diagnosis-based approach.

The job of the disability support services and the fact they have now moved from something with a health label to a Department with an equality and disability label is a positive move. What the amending legislation talked about was the movement of community-based specialist disability services. It was very much around supporting people to live in the community. We use the phrase to guide our work to support people to live ordinary lives in ordinary places. Those barriers and supports are two sides of the coin. One of the innovative pieces in the Disability Act 2005 was the setting up of a centre for excellence in universal design in the National Disability Authority. It is the only one of its kind in the world. It emphasises the need to design mainstream environments, services, information and communication in a way that they are accessible to anybody, regardless of age, size, ability or disability. Much good work has been done there. If we design a barrier-free environment and barrier-free services, that will go a huge way towards reducing the impact of impairments on people’s ability to participate in society.

The other side of that are social supports. Deputy Tully already mentioned the personal assistants. We know that much more needs to be done in that area. However, the philosophy underpinning the disability support services that the HSE delivers and that we are now funding and doing under the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is very much around how to support individuals to be out and about in their mainstream communities. That is the philosophy behind the New Directions reform of the adult day service programme, for example. It is the philosophy behind the Time to Move On programme around e-congregation. I worked on the Time to Move On report. We know there is still a way to go. It will not be delivered by just one Department. All Departments have a role and responsibility in it, whether it is the Department of Rural and Community Development around supporting and enabling communities; the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications; the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage around accessibility of physical environments; or the Department of Transport around accessible public transport. Having all these working together is what gets us to the social model, away from a medical model. That is where we are trying to get to. The work we will do on the disability inclusion strategy to further advance the UNCRPD will be around the cross-departmental issue, asking what we can do to practically reduce barriers and increase supports for people, so that we are looking at a model based on inclusion, rather than a model based on diagnosis or a medical condition.

We wear glasses. Some people would say that signals a vision impairment. It is very easily accommodated. Similarly, we want to be able to accommodate people’s impairments by having a society and environments that accommodate everybody and accommodate diversity. We also hear about accommodating that diversity from the Department of Education in our mainstream schools.

Mr. Niall Brunell

The issue of awareness is very much linked to everything Ms Fitzgerald spoke about. Mr. Ó Conaill referenced a move towards the new strategy taking a particular focus and a continuing focus from previous strategies on mainstreaming first. That requires a good level of awareness and cognisance of the issues that face disabilities across policymakers in other areas and other service delivery areas within other Departments and other public bodies. For that reason awareness raising is in the convention itself. Article 8 requires that states engage in awareness-raising campaigns. Interestingly it is caveated with effective public awareness campaigns. We have learned from preparing awareness campaigns that disability awareness probably does not go far enough. We are really talking about disability understanding and how a good understanding of disability issues and the lived experience of people with disabilities can be disseminated and shared not only throughout the State but also across wider Irish society. We are in the process of developing two large national awareness-raising campaigns. They are both linked to actions from the national disabilities strategies. The national disability and inclusion strategy that ended in December last year had an action in respect of a UNCRPD awareness campaign. That is in development at the moment. There is a similar action under the comprehensive employment strategy for a national awareness-raising campaign linked specifically to the topic of the employment of people with disabilities.

We have been working with stakeholders, with people with disabilities and with disabled persons’ organisations on the development those plans. There are going to be national campaigns rolled out over the course of the year. They will both utilise a variety of media formats. We will have radio, outdoor advertising, print and social media and television. They will be joined by awareness-raising activities. These are being co-ordinated elsewhere within the system. The committee will be aware that decision making commenced yesterday. An awareness-raising campaign is being run by the decision support service with a similar format featuring the champions of that service including people who will be service users, people with dementia and people with intellectual disabilities. That will run for the next couple of months, starting in the coming weeks.

There is much activity on the topic of disability awareness. It is from that point of view that we want to make sure there is a good cognisance of disability issues across the system and across Irish society more broadly.

Ms Martina Mannion

I join Mr. Ó Conaill in thanking the Cathaoirleach for his kind words. We are pleased to be here and to set out what we have done and what else we want to do in this area.

Four questions were asked in regard to the Department of Education. I will deal with two and ask my colleague, Mr. Hanlon, to deal with the other two. The first question related to being at 98% mainstream. We envisaged that we would see a future for 100% mainstream. The key issue in that area is to say that we want to envisage a situation where children have access to mainstream provision to the greatest degree possible. For example, in our new building programmes for special schools we are trying to colocate them on mainstream campuses in order that children can have access to mainstream provision to the greatest degree possible. We have also secured some funding through the Dormant Accounts Fund that allows us to pilot some work between special schools and mainstream campuses in order that the children in special schools have opportunities for integration and vice versa.

The key point about special schools and classes is they are buildings, teachers and SNAs within our school system. They are not resources that if we did not have special schools or classes would not be of use to us. In regard to special classes, for instance, within existing mainstream schools, the provision and the increase of special classes across the State is really building up expertise and capacity within the mainstream school system to support children with special educational needs. This expertise is underpinned by additional professional teacher training. Obviously, CPD as well as initial teacher training, which Mr. Doody spoke about, are essential to ensure inclusive practice. We fund 338 places annually on special education post-graduate courses for teachers in order to increase teacher capacity in this area.

As a concept, having qualified, expert staff with additional CPD and training in our mainstream schools, within special classes, is bringing that level of expertise and support into our mainstream schools. That will be of huge benefit to us.

I will touch on the other issue raised, which was recruitment. Both the additional funding we secured in the budget for the NCSE will allow them to recruit up to 160 additional staff. That includes special education needs organisers, SENOs, but it also includes other advisers and expert staff. That recruitment campaign will happen this summer. There is an ongoing recruitment campaign for existing SENO vacancies. However, we are going to see a big step up in the number of people working in the NCSE reaching out directly to parents and to schools. That will be very important.

We talked about the psychology service and the National Educational Psychological Service is also under my area. There is an ongoing recruitment campaign at the moment in regard to educational psychologists with the Public Appointments Service. There is a huge level of interest. Interviews are taking place. It is hoped that those psychologists will be in situ this summer. We are also supporting graduates on the existing PhD educational psychology programmes to ensure that we have a throughput of staff coming through in the area of educational psychology.

This is because it is such an important resource and support to schools.

Overall, we are confident we will have the people in situ both in the National Council For Special Education, NCSE, and within the Department to be able to make a real difference.

I will ask Mr. Hanlon to deal with the other two questions raised by Deputy Feighan on the timeline of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act and on the expansion of the summer programme. I thank the Deputy.

Mr. Frank Hanlon

We intend to conclude the review of the EPSEN Act in the third quarter of this year. We have received 28,000 responses to our survey and we are analysing those at the moment to see what the major themes coming through are. We have had a wide range of responses both from the surveys and the submissions, including a very considered submission by this committee. We want to ensure we take the time to have all of the major themes that come through from that, which we can then bring to the report. Consultation is a very important part of this and we will be running focus groups for staff, parents and children, particularly children in special educational settings because we very much need to hear from them, as well as from everybody else.

We have tendered for that and it will happen very soon. Some elements of that may take place in September. We have an advisory group which is overseeing this with an independent chair. It consists of a large number of advocacy groups, parents groups and educators. These will be fundamental in respect of agreeing to whatever recommendations come through on this.

I could talk forever on the topic of the summer programme. We have come a long way with the summer programme over the past number of years. As the Deputy will know, it was known as July provision for a long number of years - since, I believe, the mid-1990s. It has been greatly expanded since 2019 and I believe we had 13,000 participants in 2019. In the year past, we had 42,000 participants.

We worked very hard in the past year with stakeholders to ensure that what we offer this year is very much focused on the children who need it the most and we have heard from other committees and from stakeholders in that regard. This year, we have developed a pilot for special schools, in particular. We have a national co-ordinator who is a principal of a school and who has been working with special schools to try to ensure the resources and the time is there for the schools to do it. We have put in a number of supports for these schools to assist them, such as a shortening of the day for the children, which ties in with what works best for them. Both the parents and the schools are very much on board with that.

We have given additional financial supports to these schools, have done specific webinars and are organising more training for people to take part. We have also developed, with the help of the Irish Primary Principals Network, IPPN, a workforce portal, as this was one of the key things, in that if teachers in the schools were not available, we would have other workers who would come in. We have had quite a good response to that with 1,500 people having registered on that portal. That is made available to the special schools as well as to other schools as an additional resource to help them find staff for the summer programme.

The other thing we have done in mainstream schools is that we have combined some element of the programme so that schools are concentrating, first and foremost, on supporting those children with the most complex needs. It has proven to be very beneficial to children from disadvantaged backgrounds and from other countries. For instance, in the past year, we were able to accommodate on the summer programme many of the Ukrainian children who came over at short notice, together with children from other countries. They found it very beneficial to meet other children and to have peer-engagement in that key period over the summer even though many of them had only recently arrived.

We expect to see the numbers increase again this year and, not alone increase, but to be more concentrated on those children who need it the most, whether that is in special schools or in special classes. We also expect to see more peer-engagement in those settings.

One of the key things when we expanded the programme was that it was initially done as a response to Covid-19, from 2020 onwards, and it was seen as a key support to address what had happened to children at that time. Inspectors have gone out over the past couple of summers to look at how the programme has run in schools and we have received such positivity back from the schools which run the programme about the effects it has on those children. This is very much around it being key that the children receive that peer-engagement, have the opportunity to meet the other children in their school, and receive the additional tuition during that time. We have a real drive to keep that going over the next number of years.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Mr. Hanlon very much.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

I thank everyone for their contributions, which have been very interesting. As public representatives, we are constantly bombarded with these issues with regard to children being assessed and whether there are child psychologists available, which is a major problem. I know Ms Mannion spoke about recruitment which is coming through this summer but I wonder about this recruitment and if we are realistically going to reach those targets. To get the type of expertise, one needs the special educational needs organisers, SENOs, the psychologists and all of these people. Is the capacity out there? Are we going to be able to do it? I am just not sure that is going to be reachable. I hope it is and that this recruitment is realistic.

I recently had dealings with St. Michael’s House in regard to specialist units and I know it is planning to put another six units in place for people who have to or who need stay there for a period. How common is this across the country? Have we enough capacity in those situations because it appears in my area, which community healthcare organisation, CHO, 9 takes in, we certainly have problems in reaching targets. We are probably one of the worst off areas in having children assessed and so on.

I am curious to know if our witnesses have come across any problems where schools do not co-operate and do not want special classes. I do not know how to phrase this but on a number of occasions, I felt a negative response from schools. I would very much like to know how the Department deals with them because, as far as I am concerned, they are obliged to co-operate and they should be made co-operate and to put the special classes in place. That is a very big issue for me.

Ireland made several declarations and reservations about Articles 12, 14 and 27 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. How is this impacting on the implementation of the convention and what are these reservations? Are we able to address all of these reservations? I know that disabled persons' organisations, DPOs, have raised having their rights incorporated into Irish law. Can the Department's representatives give the committee an example of what these organisations mean when they say they are not getting a fair deal? Can our witnesses tell the committee what the issues are for the people who are affected by this?

I wonder about visually impaired people who are denied access to supports, such as a blind pension. If people cannot read certain letters on a chart or if they use contact lenses or other lenses, they do not have enough sight to drive a motorised vehicle as this is perceived as a visual impairment. Are we dealing with that issue? Is there a plan to expand on what is considered visual impairment?

Are there plans in that regard? I would love to hear about them if there are.

With regard to the Ombudsman, disabled persons organisations, DPOs, are saying the Ombudsman does not take Part 3 of the Disability Act seriously. What are their concerns? Why do they believe the Ombudsman is not treating them properly?

Ms Martina Mannion

I thank the Deputy. He covered several areas. He referred to child psychiatrists but I was speaking about child educational psychologists. He referred to schools not co-operating with us and how we work with schools to ensure they open the provision. I will ask my colleague, Mr. McLoughlin, to speak about the work we have done in that regard, including the new legislation that was brought in last year, in terms of the education components.

As regards staff recruitment, recruitment of educational psychologists is ongoing. There have been very positive numbers applying for the posts and those applications are being worked through the Public Appointments Service. Those people will be in the system this year. As we will always be replacing people who retire or leave their post for other reasons, there will continue to be gaps, but we are happy that the campaigns have been positive. We are getting good feedback and good people in the system and working there with us. The NCSE has a significant amount of recruitment ongoing. It is filling its vacancies. It had SENO vacancies but it is filling them. It has a new recruitment campaign coming on in the summer for those new additional posts. It will be a big difference and people will start to see it on the ground.

The Deputy referred to provision in Dublin and the challenges in that regard. There are 39 special schools in Dublin and two more, namely, Libermann and the new Dublin 7 school, coming on stream. We also have significant special classes in the area. We opened 64 new special classes at primary level in Dublin in the past year and 22 new post-primary special classes. Overall, there is very good co-operation and support from schools. They are generally very supportive of children with special educational needs. That is not to say there have not been challenges, however. Mr. McLoughlin might be able to outline our legislation in that regard and a little about how we come at it when that happens.

Mr. Martin McLoughlin

The Deputy is correct. No one wants to see a school that is reluctant to open a special class. Our experience and that of the NCSE is very much that the vast majority of schools are willing to open special classes. We have seen that in recent months, particularly where we need the post-primary sector to up the game in terms of additional special classes. All our engagement and meetings with post-primary stakeholders has been very positive. They have been willing to work with us and the NCSE. If a school is slow to respond to that ask, the stakeholders get involved and help us in that effort. To underpin all that, urgent legislation, namely, the Education (Provision in Respect of Children with Special Educational Needs) Act 2022, was brought in last summer. Two things in particular were done in that legislation. First, we required schools to state in their admissions policy that they were open to co-operate with the NCSE and open special classes when approached. Schools have to put that up front and openly in their admissions policies and they are doing so. The second piece is the stick. It is the piece no one wants to use; it is a last resort. In the legislation, we shortened the section 37A process under which the NCSE can go to the Minister to state there is a particular need in a postcode in Dublin for additional special classes and that, although it has spent a significant time engaging with the schools, there is still a reluctance to open classes. That process used to take several months but, under the new legislation, it is now down to approximately six to eight weeks. That tool of last resort is available. We have put all our effort into this issue and that is reflected in the figures. On 12 April, the NCSE published 218 new special classes to open in schools for next September. It is ready to go with potentially another 100 classes that will be published in the coming weeks. That brings us to more than 300 new classes for next September. That is probably most of the way there in terms of meeting the need for next September. We find that schools are open and willing. If they are not, we have the legislative stick to use where necessary.

Mr. Colm Ó Conaill

I will ask Mr. Brunell to speak to the reservations on the convention and to address the issues raised by the Deputy regarding DPOs. The blind pension is a matter for the Department of Social Protection rather than for us.

The Deputy referred to residential care. The entire point in terms of service provision for specialist disability services is that we have significant unmet need at the moment and, due to demographics, will face increased demand for residential care. We will have to do it in two ways. One is that we need investment for planned care. There is money in the budget this year and it is being spent but too much of it is going to emergency residential care, which is expensive and complex care. There is a need for much more focus on expanding planned residential care. The other piece is to try to avoid expensive residential care to the greatest extent possible. Any other supports that can be provided to families in the form of respite and other supports will be a much more sustainable approach in terms of what we do to support individuals with disabilities and their families. I ask Mr. Brunell to speak to the issues on the convention and DPOs.

Mr. Niall Brunell

I thank the Deputy for his question. I do not have in front of me the full list of reservations Ireland entered. I can revert to the Deputy with that information. I will speak to the general point. Ireland entered a number of reservations when it was ratifying the UNCRPD in 2018. It is important to note we joined a number of countries entering similar reservations for particular rationales. The Deputy referred to Article 12. The assisted decision-making Act brings us into much closer compliance, as of yesterday, with Article 12. Ireland entered a reservation in respect of that article such that, with proper safeguards and where provided by law, Ireland would allow for some form of substituted decision-making. There is a classic dilemma in that regard, as recognised by the higher tiers of support in assisted decision-making. If a person is in a coma, for example, somebody needs to make decisions on that person's behalf where provided by law with safeguards and strictly in line with the person's will and preference. In terms of clarifying Ireland's understanding of what ratification of Article 12 means, a reservation was entered on substituted decision-making.

As regards Article 14, in the Irish context it relates to protection of liberty safeguards. That legislation is the responsibility of the Department of Health. Before the pandemic, work was done on that up to the point of a general scheme and consultation but then, due to the need to reorient the work of that Department in response to the pandemic, work slowed. We welcome the fact it has been taken up again this year. We look forward to engaging with the Department on that and have already done so.

In the context of Article 27, the reservation related to a number of employment criteria, largely relating to appointments to emergency services. Ireland's reservations related to clarifying its understanding of the convention such that certain roles would not be automatically appropriate for the employment of people with certain impairments. For example, there are certain first responder emergency services roles that might have physical mobility criteria. Such roles could include firefighters, ambulance service personnel and so on. Ireland entered a reservation for those kinds of specific and limited roles. It reserved the right to, where prescribed by law, set certain employment criteria. Wider roles in the fire service, Defence Forces or An Garda would not be subject to that reservation, however. It is a very limited number of exceptions for certain set circumstances. Ireland had similar ratifications to a very large number of other countries in respect of those articles.

DPOs, sometimes referred to as representative organisations, are set out in the convention.

They can be distinguished from other kinds of civil society organisations as being broadly described as organisations by persons with disabilities for persons with disabilities. Obligations are set out in the consultation with regard to consultation with the DPOs. There are also other obligations set out in the convention around consultation with persons with disabilities more broadly. The general thrust of the convention, read holistically, is that states should do whatever produces the best outcome for people with disabilities in the circumstances. Articles 4(3) and 33(3) set out those provisions.

The Department has a number of measures to support engagements with DPOs. The most significant of them is probably dedicated funding to the DPO pillar of our disability participation and consultation network. It is a network of stakeholders within the disability community. There are more than 100 members in the network and we provide grant funding to five organising members, including one dedicated pillar for DPOs. The network stands to help us and other Departments looking to satisfy consultation obligations under the convention, where there is a funded standing resource we can go to. It has been involved in a number of consultations such as the autism innovation strategy last year and the preparation of the first State report for the UN committee. We continue to engage with the DPOs regularly within the Department. We have the disability stakeholder group, which is part of the monitoring structures from the previous strategy. At the most recent iteration of that group, we specifically sought applications from DPOs. Some of the participants in the ads in awareness campaigns are people with disabilities who are members of disabled persons organisations.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

With regard to numbers in schools, there has to be a certain pupil ratio for schools to have special needs assistants, SNAs. Can that be reviewed? I often find when I am talking to schools personnel that they might need 200 pupils to have a certain number of SNAs. What way does that work? It seems a bit unfair in certain places. Is anything being looked at?

Ms Martina Mannion

SNAs are providing a key support in the care needs of students. It is not like the pupil-teacher ratio, where a certain number of pupils is needed to get a teacher. This is based on the care need. SNAs in the mainstream settings are assigned where there is an identified care need. It is not related to the numbers of pupils but to the care needs of the individual pupils. Where there is a ratio, as a broad overline, it is for the special classes. A primary school class for children with autism will have one teacher and two SNAs. However, if there are children with greater care needs within that class who require additional SNA support, the school engages with the NCSE to get that support. There is no ratio beyond that. Is there anything Mr. Hanlon wishes to add?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

That more or less covers it. It would be very difficult to put a ratio in place for SNAs for the reason Ms Mannion is outlining, in that care needs vary from one school to another. One could not say a school with 200 pupils needs the same number of SNAs as another school with 200 pupils. That is as it should be. It is about identifying the individual needs of individual schools. We have the review process in order that additional SNAs can be made available to schools, if they think they need them. It has happened in hundreds of cases in the past 12 months. It is about making sure we have the fairest way of distributing SNAs in the future. When it comes to care needs, it is key that we look at individuals and individual school needs.

Ms Martina Mannion

We will have 20,000 SNAs in our school system this year - the largest number we will have ever had - supporting the children in our system. Just short of 5,000 of them will be in special classes. Approximately 11,500 of them will be in mainstream and almost 3,000 will be in our special schools. However, as we increase the numbers of special classes or schools, we will also be ensuring we have those additional SNAs and special education teachers in those posts.

Senator Erin McGreehan

The witnesses are all very welcome. I apologise I was not here for the beginning of their contributions. I was in the Seanad Chamber. My first questions are for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. We are here to speak about rights-based legislation. We all need to take that approach. What are the changes, now that the Department has been restructured and has taken over more responsibility in the area of health? Are we just changing the title? What restructuring is being done? What reshaping and refocusing will we see in disability services in the HSE? Will we have a rights-based approach and what actions will be taken towards that? Currently, we have a hit-and-miss approach whereby a person is lucky to get an appointment. It would be great if we could see what pathways we will take towards the rights-based model.

With regard to the optional protocol, I will follow on from Deputy Ellis's questions. One of the reservations mentioned was with regard to the silo of responsibilities and the responsibility of the Department of Health. What analysis has the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth done on other Departments? It is the lead Department in this area. What analysis has it been doing on other Departments that are not pulling up their socks, so to speak, with regard to this legislation? We have a responsibility and we should all be moving towards it. Mr. Brunell outlined circumstances for firefighters with regard to reservations. Surely, reservations are not a reason not to ratify the optional protocol and those reservations would be dealt with in national law and discrimination would be dealt with under existing legislation, because the optional protocol is the last case. All local remedies have to be taken care of first. If I cannot drive a car, I will not be able to drive a car or a van. If I am visually impaired, I do not have a licence. That is not discriminatory. It is just the reality. If someone is discriminated against, we have discrimination laws. I am curious as to how we say that would be a reservation. Has the Department got advice from the Attorney General or proper legal advice that such a situation would be one where we would have to go through the optional protocol?

I am not sure if the following issue has been taken up with the Department of Education but we as a State continue to use the word "special". Why do we continue to use the word "special" and not just "education"? Some children have additional needs or a disability. All our children are special, if we are to use that word. The word does not match up with the rights-based approach, the model we push for at this committee, or the UNCRPD.

SNAs are critical to inclusive education. We know we need and will need more of them to ensure we have the inclusive education we wish for. What actions is the Department taking to secure better pay and conditions and supports for SNAs, to acknowledge and recognise their qualifications, and to make sure they have a proper career path in our schools and are seen by the Department, given they are outside the Department, as an important part of the school community?

I will also ask about the follow-through of education from junior infants right up to leaving certificate. We all know a child will leave school. Where are the supports for education follow-on and making sure there is a link between a child leaving school and going on to further or higher education? Where are the changes or focus we need to see? I often find that, with regard to these special classes, a child's ambition is not seen as much.

We have to see to it that all children, no matter what additional needs they have, have an ambition to go on to the best of their ability to wherever they want to go. What work has been going on to make sure that that transition is easy and that there is ambition within the education system for children with additional needs?

Mr. Colm Ó Conaill

I will take the Senator's first couple of questions, my colleague, Mr. Brunell, will take the following couple, and there may be some for our education colleagues then.

The Senator asked a really good question. Post transfer, what differences will we see? What does it really mean to have the convention and a rights-based approach? We talked earlier about moving from the medical model to a more human rights-based approach. What it means, in reality, is a few things. The rationale for the transfer of function is a very strong one, in my opinion. The main rationale is that it will get greater priority, greater focus and greater attention.

As a Department, since 1 March - before then, in fact, but this has accelerated particularly since then - we have been doing two things in this regard. The first is to have clarity as to what our strategic priorities are and what we are really going after. The second is that we will continue to build our capability. We have a new division of disability and youth, as it is, and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has met and the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, will meet in the near future with HSE counterparts to ask what the mirroring difference we will see on the HSE's part is. We are building a division to address long-standing, urgent and critical issues with disability services and supports and the disability equality agenda more broadly. How will the HSE step up and see more decisive leadership, delivery and capability on the disability agenda? What does that look like? There will be important discussions. The Senator mentioned restructuring and the HSE part of this. She will be aware of the regional health areas and the restructuring to come but, even at a national level, what does a changed and enhanced focus on disability issues look like in the context of the HSE's leadership? Our Secretary General, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and I have discussed that with the new HSE CEO and he is giving the matter active consideration.

More broadly, though, and to step back, we see a more human rights-based approach to disability services and supports across the country for people with disabilities as two things. We have a disability capacity review, which has painted a very clear picture of very large-scale unmet need, which needs to be addressed with investment. It is not just a question of money; we have talked this morning about issues with staffing and recruitment, and other reforms are needed. It is not as simple as money, but we will need to see increased investment over the coming years, with a multi-annual programme of increased investment through the action plan. When we talk about strategic priorities, that is why the action plan is a very high strategic priority for us to get agreement on and to start delivering on.

The second way relates to how we approach services and supports. This is not something that just started on 1 March; it has been under way for several years. We are accelerating the way in which services are delivered in an inclusive, person-centred, human rights-based approach and increasing the investment in personal assistance, as Deputy Tully raised earlier, being a really important way of enhancing the independence of people with disabilities in the context of decongregation into community settings and residential care in the community, a more personalised, individualised approach to day services, and a focus not just on the organisation but also on the individual and the service he or she receives. We are not pretending this is just starting. It is a matter of accelerating this further and increasing the overall investment. Those are probably the two main ways in which we are talking about a rights-based approach.

Mr. Brunell might address some of the other matters, including the optional protocol.

Mr. Niall Brunell

The Senator asked a question about what scoping we have done for the legislative programmes of other Departments. It is not necessarily for me to get into the fine detail of other Departments' or other Ministers' legislative programmes, but we do assess whether the State is broadly compliant with the CRPD. In particular, the Department of Justice, prior to ratification of the CRPD, produced a roadmap for legislative reform at domestic level that would be required to comply with the convention. One major part of that that was recently accomplished was assisted decision-making, which encompassed elements of the Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill that lapsed with the dissolution of the previous Dáil. That exercise is done, but we are reliant on other Departments that, in fairness, are juggling competing priorities and demands in looking at the wider programme of legislative reform.

As regards ratification of the optional protocol and reservations to the convention, the Senator is absolutely correct in saying reservations are not themselves a reason not to press ahead with something. The purpose of reservations is really to clarify what a country means when it ratifies an international instrument. Considering that an international instrument is drafted to apply to every country on earth, there will be particular circumstances in which a particular country might wish to say, "To be clear, in the context of our legal system, this is what we mean when we ratify this article." That is very much the approach Ireland takes to ratifying conventions when it lodges reservations.

As regards ratification of the optional protocol itself, in the first instance the ratification of any international treaty is a matter for the Government so it is always a Cabinet decision. We have engaged with the Attorney General's office on the requirements for ratification and with the Department of Foreign Affairs, which takes a lead role in the ratification of international instruments. We are moving through a comprehensive scoping exercise. This is primarily from a perspective of due diligence. The optional protocol is a little different from other binding international treaties because we are talking about rights. I do not want to compare apples and oranges but, if I may use a loose example, if Ireland were looking at entering a binding international treaty on trade, it would be expected that we would scope out fully all the potential ramifications for our domestic legal system before we would ratify. That is the exercise we are doing now in order that our Minister can bring a robust proposal forward for ratification. It will be a Government decision as to whether it is ratified and at what stage. We had intended to have a scoping exercise with a legal focus finished earlier this year. We went to tender looking for particular expertise to assist with that. As the tender process did not give us the result we were looking for, we are tweaking it and we will go back out to market over the coming weeks. We hope to see something later this year to assist us. Ratification of the protocol is in the programme for Government. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, have gone on record as saying they are open to it, and we are working through the requirements for it.

Ms Martina Mannion

In the context of the engagement and close co-operation between Departments, it is important that the committee has our Department and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth before it today. There is very strong collaboration between our Departments on the key issues, including supporting children with special educational needs. There is a cross-sectoral group on disability issues. There is also a national education and health forum, which comprises the Health Service Executive, the National Council for Special Education and the National Educational Psychological Service, working very closely together. To give the Senator reassurance on the practical day-to-day issues, we are working very closely on the ground. She covered a number of issues and I will ask my colleague, Mr. Doody, to talk about the transitions because they are really important and something we are focusing on. What is very important in what the Senator touched on is language. We really appreciate the importance of language and its right use. We want to make sure we use the right language, use it in the right way and bring people with us in that regard. It is challenging to make sure we get it right all the time. For instance, "autistic person" and "person with autism" are used interchangeably in the engagements. We have worked with our communications unit to make sure we are rewriting and redrafting our circulars and our language. We see the review of the EPSEN Act as essential because a lot of the language we use is underpinned in our legislation. It is an essential thing to get right, and we are very conscious of it and are working hard to make sure we do.

The other thing the Senator talked about is the importance of the SNAs in our school system. We recognise the 20,000 SNAs as being an essential, key component of the educational community. They are hugely valued. Our school system could not operate, our children with additional and special educational needs could not go to school every day, if we did not have our SNAs in the system. We really brought a renewed focus on supporting SNAs in our system. To give the committee some indication of that, until maybe the past year or so there was just one principal officer within the area of special education; there are now four, three of whom are here today.

As a Department, we have really ramped up our internal resources. One of those new, dedicated units we have established is the SNA workforce development unit. We started that unit in December 2022. There are a number of key focuses in the unit, namely, the role and duties of the SNA, the minimum entry requirements, the quality assurance of the SNA service and the collaborative practice, which is to look at the schools quality framework that already exists in our schools but does not specifically reference SNAs. We want to make sure that happens. We therefore now have a dedicated team within the Department and it is looking at all issues.

We were at the Fórsa conference recently. My colleague in that area and I attended. There are strong, collaborative working relationships with Fórsa and with the school management bodies to ensure that SNAs, who provide such an essential service, are valued and supported in our system. The committee will see a lot of good work in that area in the next year or so. The Senator spoke about pay and conditions, which are dealt with as part of the national wage agreements. Colleagues within the Department are working with our colleagues in the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform on that.

Another issue the Senator raised was how we had managed to support children with special educational needs in our system. Until we got additional, dedicated posts looking across policy and provision, we were very much stuck in the "urgent" category. That was, generally speaking, related to special class places, special school places and home tuition. It was not doing policy. Having taken additional teams into the Department, we have been able to make progress on, for example, the EPSEN review, a greatly expanded summer programme and the work Mr. Doody has spoken about regarding the behaviours. There are also the autism guidelines, which are a phenomenal resource in the system. In the past year, we have dedicated time and resources to our school transitions programme. I will ask Mr. Doody to tell the Senator about our school transitions programme pilot.

Mr. Brendan Doody

I would like to add a quick, additional point on the use of language, which is a really important issue. There are particular sensitivities attached to language. Language is ever-evolving. If we were to look at some of the language that was used in Department notices, circulars etc. in the 1950s, 1960s or even as recently as the 1970s, we would be horrified by some of the terminology. It is important to note that we take account of the latest professional advice in respect of all communications, as Ms Mannion has outlined.

An additional strand of information for us comes from the National Disability Authority, which has published guidelines for everyone in respect of language and use of language. We very much take account of the need to be sensitive about language. Anything we have published in the very recent past such as, for example, the autism guidelines published in 2022, will state upfront that there will be sensitivities about language. As Ms Mannion has said, some people prefer the term, "I am an autistic person". Others will say "I am a person with autism". It is very difficult to square that particular circle. However, taking account of it, acknowledging it etc., is really important.

On the issue of transitions, it is an ambition of the Department to ensure that every student is supported to make the most effective transition to whatever his or her options are after school. This may be to higher education, further education or whatever that may be. We recognise that for students with more complex educational needs, additional support will be required. Students in post-primary schools, for example, will have access to guidance counselling provision. If they are in a DEIS school, they will have enhanced guidance counselling provision. All of that is good and necessary. If you are in a special school, however, you are in a "special primary school" - that is how it is categorised - so you do not have an allocation of subject teachers, as you would have in a post-primary school. However, we are looking at ways of working through that at the moment.

We have launched two programmes in the very recent past, which are still in their infancy. They are both focused on trying to ensure we provide as much support as possible to students who have more complex educational needs to make the best transition for them. In some instances, this transition may be to adult disability services but in others, it may be to further education, to an apprenticeship, perhaps to the world of work or whatever it may be. We want all of them to have the same opportunities as every other student in our system. We have taken a specific action as part of the Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities 2015-2024. As part of that, we have provided 20 schools, a cluster of ten in Dublin and a cluster of ten in Galway, with 12 additional teaching hours. We are not calling them guidance hours; we are calling them transition support hours because we are asking the schools to focus their work on the concept of transition from the school into the post-school option. Most of these schools are mainstream post-primary schools, but there are six special schools in this as well. It is very new for a special school to have an allocation of hours dedicated specifically for this purpose. We have provided a full-time co-ordinator for the programme. We have provided the NCSE with additional supports to co-ordinate the programme for us. Business in the community is centrally involved in this programme. Having met all the schools online in the recent past, I would say that there is a very strong welcome among the schools in the first instance for the additional support they will get. Also, they are driven to try to ensure that the students with the most complex needs in their schools are supported.

While this is not a directly intended consequence, an unintended consequence of this programme is likely to be that economic dependency on the State will be removed in respect of some of the students who may otherwise just transition to adult disability services. They have enormous potential and enormous abilities. We want the schools to tap into that and to ensure those students have the best possible options available to them.

A second programme we have launched, which is under dormant accounts, is a partnership programme with an NGO. The Senator might ask why we are launching two programmes that are both focused on transitions at the same time. It actually gives us a very good opportunity to test what approach works most effectively. In the comprehensive employment strategy, CES, transitions programme, we are providing additional teaching hours to the schools. The schools have very much welcomed that. In this other programme, which is with an NGO called WALK based in Walkinstown, there is a very different model. It applies an off-the-shelf, manualised programme, which is their peer learning programme. It does not involve additional teaching hours. The other main difference is that it will follow the student for up to three years after their transition. It will support those young people in their further educational placement, in the world of work, or whatever it is they may go for a further three years, having completed the programme. Both programmes are targeted at students at the senior cycle end of things: either senior cycle in mainstream schools or the senior classes in the special school. There is therefore a lot going on. As I said, this is all in its early stages but were the committee to invite us back this time next year, it is my hope that we would be able to say we have made an awful lot of progress and that students are being well prepared to make really good transitions from their schools.

Senator Erin McGreehan

When will this programme start? Will it be in this school calendar year?

Mr. Brendan Doody

They are both up and running, but they are in their very early stages.

Senator Erin McGreehan

That is great. It is also great to keep the committee aware of this great work.

An Cathaoirleach

I call Deputy Canney.

Deputy Seán Canney

I was not here for the start of the meeting but was listening to the witnesses' presentations in my office.

The more we speak and the more we bring witnesses before the committee, the more we realise how complex the whole area of disability is. One issue is often raised in my office and I seek the witnesses' views on how we can resolve it. It is regarding when somebody finds out that his or her child, who is at a very young age, has a difficulty. For the first time, it begins to dawn on such people that the child may have a need and they ask where they go. All of what the representatives have said to day, as well as the language they have been using is great. This is something that parents will find out over four or five years of having been in the system. They will become experts on everything and anything. However, in the very early stages of parents being faced with a child who has a difficulty, they have nobody to hold their hand.

They have no pathway by which somebody would sit down with them and say: "This is how it is going to be done and this is the pathway you will follow". There will be talk of strange things like speech and language therapists, and all kinds of therapists and assessments, including needs assessments. The parents will be in a state of flux and trying to come to terms first of all with the fact that perhaps their child has a special need. The frustration for parents is, first, they do not know who to turn to and, second, they are put on a waiting list and it can be anything up to two years before they have an assessment. We all talk about early intervention. We talk about UN protocols and everything else, but how are we going to address that? I find it frustrating that we are talking about the systems, policies, working groups and everything else, but at the end of the day, what are we going to do for these parents and their children, right at the very start so that they have a hand to hold to bring them on the journey they will be going on? That is vital.

This is not a criticism, but there is a huge amount of missing infrastructure. I have a case in Galway where a person with a disability who needs residential care was offered a place in Westport or Castlerea. That is not what was intended. The person is now being considered for a nursing home as an interim solution, which is not cheap. There is a deficit in the infrastructure as well.

To follow up on a point mentioned by Senator McGreehan, in Tuam we have St. Oliver's Special School, which is a beautiful, brand-new school. The name is up on it and people are asking why we put the word "special" into it. When I checked with the Department, it said it is a matter for the board of management. I think there needs to be a direction on that. The school is special, but every school in the town is special as well. As has been said, every child is special. As it was raised again, I think we need direction on that so that the schools would probably use some other name. "St. Oliver's school" would be grand, rather than St. Oliver's Special School.

I believe that we have an awful lot of work to do. I will go back to the interaction of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters and the Department with responsibility for disability with the HSE. It is a huge challenge to try and make sure that whatever the Department is doing we get it on the ground. People working in the disability services area of the HSE are finding it pretty difficult because they do not have the resources. For instance, a speech and language therapist who is going on maternity leave, who will be gone for ten months, is not going to be replaced. The children are being told they have to go back on the waiting list. We have a lot of work to do. It is not a criticism, but at times we need to portray what is coming into our offices at local level.

There are a lot of good things happening. Mention was made of pilot schemes that have been started, which is good, but we need to get back to the basics. A lot of parents I talk to say that when they hear about reconfiguration or doing things differently, and when something is being prepared, they see that now as being something to talk about rather than getting the problem solved. No matter what happens in the future, we must start at the ground and make sure that people get a hand to bring them along the way at the very start of the process.

Mr. Colm Ó Conaill

I thank Deputy Canney for some very good and interesting questions. Before I ask my colleague, Mr. Doran, to talk about the interface between primary care and the children's disability network teams, I will pick up on the point about the new responsibilities in our Department and the HSE. The first point is that there are no changes on the ground, to the extent that services will not be changed or shifted out of the HSE. The HSE will be funded and it will deliver some services, and most disability services will continue to be delivered. The vast majority of disability services are delivered by voluntary organisations. That is not going to change. What is changing is policy. There will be increased oversight and attention at a departmental level, with disability having transferred to our Department, compared to where it was before with the Department of Health. That is the entire rationale for the transfer and that is what we will make happen. Deputy Canney's question was a very good one in terms of seeing changes from a departmental level right through onto the ground. We are engaging at the moment on the PDS roadmap. It is the number one priority, as was clearly stated yesterday evening in this room by the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. It is being finalised by the HSE. There is strong feedback from the two Ministers who want to see credible action delivered and scaled as rapidly as possible. I am in this area.

When people with disabilities in Ireland access services and supports, most of them will receive mainstream services. That is the overwhelming proportion of people with disabilities in Ireland. Not only will there be no change in terms of the HSE responsibility, but while we are looking to see a change in approach from the HSE it will still be responsible and we will be interacting with it. Most adults and children with disabilities will continue to interact with mainstream services. Primary care is the first port of call for parents who have concerns, are unsure, or want more information before they engage with more specialist services.

I will hand over to Mr. Doran to talk about the national access policy and the interface between primary care and more specialised services for children with greater and more complex needs in the disability area.

Mr. Jason Doran

I thank Deputy Canney for the question. His question is really at the heart of all the correspondence that he and other colleagues around the country receive. We receive correspondence ourselves about the direct interface between families, children, and the services delivered by health and social care professionals.

In order to avail of those health services, assessment of need is not required. It has probably been driven by educational needs in terms of elements being needed for places in schools, but at the very early stages where parents have concerns, they can directly refer to a CDNT and engage with it on the needs of the child.

Communication was mentioned as well. It is fair to say that communication on that particular issue by the HSE has not been appropriate over the years. There is a module within the roadmap that outlines specific actions internally within the HSE on what it is going to do, but also that family-facing engagement and communication piece, for example in terms of letters that get sent out that may not be appropriate, as Senator McGreehan said earlier. We have all seen examples of that. There will also be guidance on how to route the child through the CDNT or where there is a unidisciplinary issue, into primary care. At the crossroads where the parent approaches the HSE, the question is whether the parent goes to the CDNT for multidisciplinary issues or takes the primary care approach. There are issues around the national access policy, and that is also contained within the roadmap in terms of trying to resolve that between ourselves and the Department of Health. There are very specific issues that are being addressed within that roadmap, but it is accepted that it is a significant problem, especially when people might be in a more heightened state with the concerns relating to their child. I think that is accepted.

Ms Martina Mannion

I have just a couple of points to add there. Deputy Canney is right that the key issue for parents is getting good information and supporting them to help them to make the right decisions about educational placement. That is a key function of the NCSE. A key part of its role is to engage with parents at an early stage to make sure that they have all of the information on the appropriate school places in their area.

One of the challenges that had been faced by parents was those gaps in services from the NCSE. I know, for example, that there has been a SENO vacancy in the Galway area and in the Mayo area and I am pleased to say that both of those vacancies are being filled so people will see that those SENOs are back on the ground.

On waiting for services, because children have a constitutional entitlement to be in school, all children can access education immediately from the age of four, although people tend to go in a bit later now because of the early childhood care and education system. Once the children are approaching school age or are in schools, we are making the resources and provision available. For example, in Galway this year we opened 18 new special classes. We have plans to open 70 more special classes in Galway in the next three years to cater for children who will need them and furthermore, we will have the teachers and SNAs in mainstream education. There is the key matter of the NCSE helping and guiding parents as to what the best placement for them is in an educational context. We must fill the vacancies and then we hope those additional staff coming into the NCSE will make a big difference for parents by having more direct contact with the NCSE on the ground.

Deputy Seán Canney

What about the naming of the schools?

Ms Martina Mannion

That is a good point and it goes back to the conversation we had earlier around language. The NCSE is a statutory body and the word "Special" is in that. As Mr. Doody said, in a large number of these cases this is how they were set up initially. The Department would be open looking to look at the naming of schools and will engage with the boards of management and patrons on that. We mentioned to Senator McGreehan when we talked about this that we want to make sure the language is reflective of the way the system is and of the way it should be, and to make sure we are supporting people in the use of that. As part of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004, we are looking at that.

Deputy Seán Canney

The schools are brilliant, as is all of the work that is happening. There is a lot of good news. I was a lecturer so I saw young students with disabilities who came into third level education, went on from that and they are now working and they are still friends of mine. There is great potential in these people. It is not necessarily about disabilities but they have different abilities and that is the way we have to approach it. There are good things happening but we need to get it going at the start.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank members and I thank the witnesses for being here. If you look at the questions coming from members, as public representatives we are experiencing the frustrations of families and the challenges that are being faced there. A lot has changed in education provision and throughout the system. I spoke at the Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth last night about the attitude towards this and that probably goes back to the use of language in circulars in the 1950s and 1960s and so forth. We have come a long way but we have a long road to go as well in our attitude.

On school transport in the Department of Education, I find it extremely challenging, to put it mildly, to resolve some issues that crop up for families that have opted to get the grant at some stage and then switched because it simply does not work out and they are trying to get transport. I have one particular family that has applied for it since last September and has not got confirmation of it yet as we face 1 May and we are into the last few weeks of the school year. That is simply unacceptable and I have been trying to contact the Department for some time and have got no response on it. The Department should look at that and make sure that school transport for kids with additional needs is fit for purpose and ready to deal with them. The straightforward stuff is done straight away but if there are changes there does not seem to be an ability to respond to that in a speedy way.

I mention the unmet need, which we keep talking about in this committee. I return to the point that an awful lot of good work has been done but that there is an awful lot of work to do. I would put down the challenge about finances or resources that are there within the current year, particularly to add additional services or capacity for respite, children's respite and so forth. All of that is being driven on apace and is not just in a process. It must be moving apace and there must be no issue with it.

The witnesses spoke about the issues with speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists right across Europe. There is an issue with CORU and the delay in ratifying people with these qualifications to work within Ireland. All of those things should be ironed out as fast as possible. It is something that will help to build capacity within the network for people with additional needs or disabilities and it should be ironed out. For me looking in, a simple thing seems to be delaying it and there needs to be urgency with that. The reality with society and everything else is that it is developing and evolving and we will have to have new ideas, which is why I welcome the pilot schemes. We also need to make sure that we free any small blockages in the system, which could make an awful difference. We have shortages of labour in different sectors but we should be talking to second level students about occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and the need for those posts within society. As we evolve and develop, those positions will be needed more in mainstream education as well to support the broader society. That is something we should do and those are my few comments. We talk about the optional protocol and the ratification of same, which is a priority for this committee, but we have a lot of work to do in the meantime to try to make sure the basic services are available.

I thank the witnesses for coming. We had Mr. Ó Conaill, Mr. Brunell, Mr. Doran, Ms Fitzgerald, Ms Mannion, Mr. McLoughlin and Mr. Doody. I thank them for their time this morning and for the work they have done. From the presentations they gave this morning, we saw the sincerity of what they are trying to do. We look forward to continuing to work and engage with the witnesses directly on the issues that face our committee.

I thank the members who attended for their participation and work ethic on the job at hand. I thank our team, who are fantastic.

The joint committee adjourned at 11.37 a.m. until 3.15 p.m. on Wednesday, 3 May 2023.