I thank Deputy Quinlivan for chairing our committee so ably and for tolerating a lot of toing and froing and time overruns, but the purpose and spirit committee members brought to the task at hand is manifest in the report. I urge all Members of both Houses and officials in all Departments to pay special attention to it. The report runs to 42 pages. Pages 9 to 11 are the key pages because they contain the 33 recommendations. None of our work would have been possible without the submissions, in-person attendance and work of the secretariat in the background, keeping us on the straight and narrow and providing research and guidance. We had contributions from special needs assistants, personal assistants, teachers, allied healthcare professionals, service providers at the coalface and the National Council of Special Education. I appreciate that whole school communities have had quite a lot of turmoil and policy change to grapple with in recent years. They have risen to the challenge wholeheartedly and are producing fantastic results for our children and for our future, while trying to manage change in policy with finite resource and oft times very scarce resources. That places immense stress on the system. They are then trying to co-ordinate communication with parents, linking in with the health sector, and linking in with all the different service providers that may be appropriate along the way. What has become evident, and it is manifest in Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, is that the focus now has to be needs based and on the needs of the child, and not necessarily set in concrete in a diagnostic process. We are moving towards a change in that area. I am quite an impatient person so I suppose I am always thinking of what actions can we actually implement. We are part of a five-year cycle and I hope the recommendations in the report do not take the full term to achieve implementation. I will give an example of where action has come about quite quickly, and the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, referred to it. I visited St. Bernadette's in Letterkenny on Monday. My niece is on the staff there. Mr. Haran, the principal there, welcomed the recent funding for that transition piece from primary to secondary, and secondary to tertiary or to service provision. That is most welcome. The Minister of State is hitting the ground running so more would be most welcome. The objective of Article 24 and the right that underpins all this is that all learners with disabilities can access an inclusive, high-quality education system with the appropriate supports, with reasonable accommodation, and without discrimination. The results in the report will address all that in succession. It is fair to say at this stage that national policy has evolved considerably. I cast my mind back to the time when I was a child and my mother was a primary school teacher in County Meath. When the bell rang, as kids all we wanted to do was get out, get into the car and go home. We did not quite understand why mam might have been the extra hour or even the extra hour and a half or two hours after school. What she was actually doing at that time was ad hoc support and assistance to children in her care who needed it. Cross check that with the current situation with the EPSEN Act, the review thereof and the recommendations, and things are moving in the right direction. Again I refer to my impatience. What I would like to see, and I think the signs are good, is that the education, health and disability supports that are currently fragmented across regions and perhaps across schools and between individual children, will all move to a point where we have inter-agency co-ordination and we have joined-up working. That is essential. There is a task force within the Department of the Taoiseach. There is the Minister of State's Department of Education and Youth. We have the Department of Children, Equality and Disability. It is about more of those links. I am being cheeky now but the Cathaoirleach of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters is here. I am jumping ahead but I would like to see more attendances at our committee meetings, either in public or in private session, so we are very much aware of what the different groups are doing and that we are all on the same page, so we can deliver outcomes for children as quickly as possible. I will refer to some of the points that witnesses have emphasised. The key starting point is that children's ability to learn and engage meaningfully in school is linked to emotional regulation, psychological safety, and access to timely therapeutic supports. The Minister of State referred to the Liskennett centre and the fantastic work being done there through the medium of equine assisted therapy. This is the type of approach that helps with regulation and helps with the release of oxytocin, which biochemically helps bring about calmness. When we have calmness and regulation, the channels open up for learning. The good work at Liskennett is being replicated at Clonalvy in County Meath with Joy Murray and at Stewarts Care in Kilcloon through Terri Brosnan and her team there. We wish to see more of that. I appreciate that officials are looking for an evidence base but I would like to flag something with the Minister of State that I noticed on social media, which is the Department of agriculture funded equine therapy and programmes that are available around the country for the children of farming communities who have additional needs. If the Department of agriculture can do it, perhaps we could see more of that provided through the Minister of State's Department. I am very happy to work with him on that. Well-being supports are well proven to help sustain inclusion for students with complex needs. As referred to on page 25 of the report, there is a requirement for holistic, multidisciplinary, social and emotional supports. We had a fantastic visit to the Corpus Christi school in Limerick where we met with the team there. We had the team from St. James's primary school in to visit us. I have been to St. Bernadette's. We also have St. Mary's in County Meath. This is not to take away for one minute from the work that is being done in special classes. I would also like to commend the library services through the local authorities, in particular Meath County Council. Through the healthy Meath programme, it has have embraced well-being classes and story massage through Una Curran, who has also done this online with other local authorities. If colleagues would like information to that effect, I can pass on her details. There is a whole area referenced in the report on art and music therapy. I will bring one book to the attention of Members. The question arises of the evidence base and whether there is there an evidence base for all these integrated therapies. There is indeed and there is an excellent book called Art Cure: the Science of How the Arts Transform our Health. It is also very beneficial to elder care. I just wanted to flag that. In the area of recruitment, I commend the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Lawless, and the Minister of State, Deputy Harkin, on the move towards the increased college places for occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and students of psychology, and for the reforms that are coming in the area of education. These are most welcome. I will give a particular mention to Dunboyne College of Further Education, which is now linking in with Enable Ireland and with the HSE primary care teams. To conclude, I would highly recommend all Members to please read the report. We refer to the area of personalised budgets and personal assistants minimally in the report but that is an area for future development. It underlies all our work on the committee. I will finish with a quotation from Dr. Margaret Mead, the famous American anthropologist. She had fantastic observations of the social norms of her day but they are very relevant at this point in time. The Minister of State made a similar comment this afternoon. Dr. Mead said, "The solution to adult problems tomorrow depends in large measure upon the way our children grow up today."

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I am looking at you.

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