Ms Derval McDonagh:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to exchange with it on this key issue. I am the CEO of Inclusion Ireland and I am joined today by Guillaume Jacquinot, a policy co-ordinator at the organisation.

Inclusive education is a core pillar of our work. We believe that inclusive communities have their beginnings in education, and our vision is for a time when all children get to go to school together. This vision should not leave out any child, from those who require a small amount of support to access their rights to children who require intensive support. Education rights should be universally applied to children; they should never be negated or denied based on a child's support need. The issue we are here to discuss might be specific, but it also shows a general level of disconnection between policy at departmental level and the lived experiences of disabled children and their families who are constantly fighting for the recognition of their fundamental rights.

The removal of the criterion “complex needs” from the allocation of additional resources to a school is a worry not only for the children and parents but also for schools. We contend that the content of this directive is not compliant with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Ireland in 2018, while the manner in which it was communicated and relayed publicly is quite far removed from the disability motto “Nothing about us without us”. The State has an obligation to consult the people most affected by policy positions and actions. In this instance, the State has failed to do that. We agree with AsIAm's position that we must be assured that children and their families will be consulted and that a formal process will be put in place to ensure stakeholders such as us have formal ways of engaging with the Department and shaping policy. While the large increase in budget for special education is often presented at a national level by the Government to positively present its action, the impact of this investment is not carefully reviewed, evaluated or monitored effectively. There is a mismatch between what is presented publicly and the lived experiences of children in our schools.

The committee has an opportunity to see in our briefing document some of the findings of a survey we ran jointly with AsIAm and Down Syndrome Ireland last week, which gathered more than 1,300 answers from families. It captures their reactions to the new allocation model suggested by the Department. The snap poll gathered 1,344 responses and showed the impact of a lack of consultation and communication. Approximately 85% of respondents had a child who was receiving special education teaching support in school, while 94% believed that any reduction in special education teaching hours would impact on their child's ability to learn and participate in schools. A total of 74% of respondents felt they did not have a good understanding of the changes proposed by the Department and 96% were concerned the change would see their child's school lose resources.

The parents were also given an opportunity to outline the basis and nature of their concerns, with a number of key issues emerging. They included a lack of sufficient resources in the system prior to any change, with children already struggling with the resources provided by the existing system, and concerns about any reduction in support on individual children in schools. Another concern was that the proposed changes demonstrate a lack of understanding of the experiences of children with complex needs, and there was a significant concern the changes would create barriers to accessing mainstream education, including soft barriers to enrolment. There was a concern about the impact the change would have on children with complex needs due to start school in September, and there were fears as to why the Department made the decision and the basis of the proposed model, including the use of sTen literacy and numeracy scores to allocate resources.

I will highlight a couple of quotations from family members in the survey. One said they were thinking of their child’s future and that, as the parent of a child with Down's syndrome, they were concerned the removal of special education teaching hours will affect their child's learning and development, which, in turn, will affect her chances of progressing with education in line with her peers. They said any changes could impact on her chances of living an independent and autonomous life, given that in schools we learn all the skills to progress into adulthood.

A loss of resources for schools was also highlighted through the survey. One teacher stated their school had already lost resources, yet it has a greater level of complex needs than ever. They asked how the school is to continue to support people when the algorithm for providing hours was based solely on literacy and numeracy. They called this disgraceful. Many of these findings tally with concerns raised in a petition signed by more than 700 principals making up the National Principals Forum.

The single biggest theme we find in all our work is that of developing trust. Families need to trust that their child will get the support they need in their local school, while schools need to trust they will get the support and resources they need in supporting all children in their community. The only way to build this trust is through developing a cross-governmental plan for inclusive education where we can see the commitment of our leaders and evaluate our progress through improvements in the quality of the educational experience that children receive.

A survey recently published by Inclusion Ireland got more than 500 responses from parents sharing their children's lived experiences at school and only 14% said their child was thriving at school, while 45% of parents said their children were being failed by the educational system as they face multiple barriers to access their right to school. They contend with either a lack of appropriate supports at school, a reduced timetable, emotionally based school avoidance or other distressing experiences. A snap poll taken by AsIAm and Inclusion Ireland two weeks ago revealed that 27% of children had experienced restraint and 35% had experienced seclusion. The disconnect between policy and their experiences has never felt so acute. Last night on "Drivetime", two parents shared their child's story of seclusion and restraint in school. We have been shining a light on this since 2018, yet we are still at only the pilot stage of developing guidelines for schools. What will it take to make us take this seriously? How many stories must children and families tell publicly and at what cost to them?

The concluding comments of the State’s recent review before the UN's economic, social and cultural rights committee highlighted that we are missing disaggregated data on the experiences of disabled children in school today, and concern was expressed about our current system of education when we should be looking towards advancing a vision of a more inclusive system.