Dr. Noreen O'Leary:

The short answer to the Senator's question about who has responsibility for this is that in a way, it is everybody's responsibility. That does sometimes then create the problem of who is responsible. To meaningfully address change, we need all the stakeholders involved. We need the Department of Education, the Department of Health and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Within that, however, and I do not know the answer to this, there does ultimately need to be somebody who can direct resources and take decisions to say this is the direction we are going and here is what we need from the different stakeholders, even if it is to look at the evidence and research. As the Senator said, it is not that there is necessarily a lack of research in the area, but somebody can say we are going to look at it and this is what we agree is the strategy we are going to try. We pilot it, gather the data, review it and see whether it is working. If it is, great, we can move further on with it. If it is not, we address it, tweak and it and figure it out. However, sometimes there is a sense, and this perhaps comes across in the progressing disability services, PDS, programme a bit, that we have committed to this model and we will continue to move in this direction, but we actually need to pause and take stock. School placement is one of the most stressful issues for families around their children.

It is such a huge part of a child's life - their social, developmental and future life. So much of it comes back to those educational experiences they have. I have experience of working in special preschools, Ms Moran worked in special primary and post-primary schools, and we see the impact of those experiences. There is a lot of debate at the moment about the role of mainstream versus special classes versus special schools. Our take on it is that it is what works best for the particular child-----