Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2022-02-17
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Eamon Ryan (GP), Dublin Bay South

I am not aware of the school in question but I am aware of the issue. In my family we have a child with special needs and I have seen him grow up through the various parts of the health and education systems. My broad assessment is that our education system is providing many services that did not exist ten or 20 years ago and that there has been significant progress. The problems really start to occur in the interaction between the health system and the education system. The communication between the two is very poor. Every child and his or her circumstances are different. Some children would benefit best from being educated within specialist units outside the traditional school model; others really benefit where integration is possible. One of the biggest benefits of the integrated model is that other children in the school grow up knowing what it is like to work with and to be educated with children with disabilities. That model is working well. I am sorry if that is a very general answer but it is based on my lived experience.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-02-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-02-17