Learning supports in schools
Sir, – The father in your article “Children with dyslexia being denied chance to learn Irish due to lack of support in schools, say experts” (Home News, December 22nd) is spot on in his analysis. The exemptions system, as it’s now operating, is not a support system for students, it’s a cop-out on the part of the State.
In terms of Gaeilge, parents of children with dyslexia (and a number of other additional educational needs) are presented a binary choice – opt in, but with no additional supports, or opt out. And that’s hardly a choice at all.
And the latter is the path of least resistance. That in itself sends out a powerful signal. It says that the State doesn’t really value Gaeilge as a subject, that it doesn’t really matter, that it can be jettisoned without any negative impacts.
And it absolves the State of any further responsibility to the student. No extra supports required.
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Any yet, many of these students will continue to study another European language. I can accept to a certain degree, from my own experience in the classroom, from my own experience with dyslexia, that Gaeilge does present some specific difficulties, particularly in its written form, but should our education system really deal with this on a “cope or don’t” basis?
At primary level, our new language curriculum, despite its many flaws, is flexible and adaptable in terms of accommodating a wide range of learning outcomes. The framework is there. Aligning the secondary curriculum with the Common European Framework, as promised in the current Programme for Government, would allow the same flexibility of outcome to apply for older students.
This would be especially true if those learning outcomes were adequately supported, as we do in English language literacy, as we do in maths.
In all likelihood, there will still be some students for whom an exemption will be the correct approach. I don’t argue for their complete repeal. But if we are serious about the Irish language, if we truly believe in its cultural significance and its value as a lens through which we understand ourselves and the wider world, exemptions should not be the first and only choice for parents. Children should be enabled to achieve to their ability and should be supported to do so.
That’s what educators strive every day to do. The State should resource it. – Yours, etc,
MARC Ó CATHASAIGH,
Tramore,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – I am a paediatric occupational therapist. I have supported children with physical disabilities, autism, intellectual disability, congenital disabilities, and complex medical needs in both mainstream and special education environments across multiple regions.
I am writing to raise a matter of serious public concern: the ongoing and extraordinary waste of public money arising from the Department of Education’s failure to establish any meaningful system for recycling and refurbishing specialist school equipment.
Many children require specialist furniture in order to access their education. This includes supportive classroom chairs, height-adjustable tables, specialist toilet equipment, changing benches, and hoists. These items are not optional extras; they are essential supports that allow children to sit safely, regulate their posture, manage fatigue, attend to learning, and participate with dignity alongside their peers.
The cost of this equipment is substantial. A supportive chair for a child, depending on their needs, may cost anywhere from €1,500 to €5,000 plus. Height-adjustable tables can range from a few hundred euro to over €1,000. Specialist toileting frames and changing benches frequently cost several thousand euro each. All of this is funded by the taxpayer, and rightly so.
However, children grow. Their bodies change. Their medical and postural needs evolve. As a result, equipment often has a relatively short useful life for an individual child, despite remaining in excellent condition and entirely suitable for reuse by another student.
Yet the Department of Education operates no national recycling, refurbishment, or redistribution scheme for this equipment.
In practice, this means that schools are left with rooms, cupboards, and corridors filled with tens of thousands of euro worth of unused specialist furniture. In many cases, schools simply do not have the space to store it. Equipment is placed in unsuitable storage, deteriorates through poor conditions, or ultimately ends up being discarded – even when it is fully functional and could meet another child’s needs.
As clinicians, we try to act responsibly. Where possible, we recycle equipment within a school through our own local knowledge.
The HSE operates a national recycled equipment stock. Clinicians are required, in the first instance, to source equipment from this system. Items are professionally assessed, repaired, sanitised, and redistributed. This approach is fiscally responsible, clinically sound, environmentally sustainable, and – crucially – often faster than purchasing new equipment.
Similarly, under the Government’s Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) for early learning, a national recycling system is embedded within the capital equipment grant process. Equipment is reused where possible, extending its lifespan and protecting public funds while fully meeting children’s needs.
It is simply incomprehensible that the Department of Education has not adopted a similar model, particularly given the escalating costs in special education, the acknowledged shortages in classroom places, Special Needs Assistant supports, and assistive technology, and the repeated calls for better value-for-money across public spending.
On one hand, we are told there is no funding. On the other, millions of euro worth of specialist equipment is allowed to sit idle, deteriorate, or be discarded because no system exists to manage it.
We as taxpayers must call for an urgent examination of this issue and the immediate development of a national recycling and refurbishment scheme for Department of Education – funded, specialist school equipment, modelled on systems that already exist and function effectively elsewhere within the State.
How much longer we are prepared to tolerate the squandering of public funds while children wait for resources that already exist, unused, behind locked doors? – Yours, etc,
CLAIRE STOKES,
Senior Occupational Therapist,
West Cork.
Alcohol and road safety
Sir, – There have been many calls for action on road safety including the need for leadership in Government given the devastating death toll this year in Ireland.
One area which needs particular attention is drink-driving. Over a third of deaths in Ireland have an alcohol factor, while a study in France found that drivers under the influence of alcohol are almost 18 times more likely to be responsible for a fatal crash. The evidence is clear that enforcement of the laws on drink-driving is critical to reduce offending behaviour, in particular to have highly visible, random breath-testing. Research also finds that public education and marketing campaigns, if implemented alone, are ineffective strategies for reducing drink-driving.
A recent survey by the Road Safety Authority revealed that 1 in 8 drivers in Ireland admitted to driving under the influence this year – a 20 per cent rise from 2024. That’s around 400,000 people annually taking a lethal weapon on to our roads. However, Ireland has the lowest level of roadside breath-testing in the EU. In 2023, there were just 8,863 arrests for drink-/drug-driving and in 2024 this had decreased to around 7,500. For any drink-driver, the expectation is that they will not be caught.
There is much to learn from approaches in other countries. In Australia, there is a target of every licensed driver being breathalysed at least once a year. This approach with highly visible random breath-testing patrols has brought about a significant reduction in drink-driving deaths with 14 per cent of driver fatalities in Australia having a positive toxicology for alcohol compared with 37 per cent in Ireland.
There are also issues around the need to close loopholes in Irish law relating to the taking of blood samples within a narrow three-hour window after a collision and the requirement that this be done under the direction of a garda as opposed to a doctor/nurse in a hospital who has formed the opinion that a person is intoxicated. And why is there such a delay in the introduction of the Alcolock system for drink-driving offenders, along with access to treatment for those with an Alcohol Use Disorder?
These facts were highlighted at a RSA conference on this issue in June 2025 which was attended by the Minister of State with responsibility for road safety at the Department of Transport, Seán Canney, and have been raised in subsequent meetings and communications.
There is no doubting the Minister’s sincerity in wanting to reduce the carnage on our roads. However, to bring about a transformation in one of the most significant factors for road safety needs determined collaboration across Government departments, including justice, finance, health and transport, with these proven measures. Can 2026 be the year that we see clear targets being set for roadside breath-testing and a commitment to the resourcing which is needed for this? – Yours, etc,
Dr SHEILA GILHEANY,
Alcohol Action Ireland,
Dublin 7.
Neutrality in a changing world
Sir, – For neutral status to obtain, it must be recognised by other states in the form of international agreements or treaties. It is insufficient merely to believe it or announce it. The prerequisites for neutral status are impartiality and the maintenance of a credible military capability such that no belligerent could derive advantage in war from the free use of the neutral’s resources.
It is the belligerents, not the neutral state, that will make a determination about that credibility. In a policy – backed by two divisions – Ireland was neutral in the second World War, maintaining the necessary impartiality with a public scrupulousness which now makes some uncomfortable.
No modern state views our current defence capability as credible within the meaning of neutrality in war. And yet, we have sent material support to Ukraine and sanctioned Russia. We therefore have not complied with the requirements of a neutral. There is to my knowledge no concept of “political neutrality” in international law and the distinctions we have been making in this regard are meaningless. Neutral status is a function of the actions of the state in trade and war, not what its leaders say or what its people think.
Ireland had better raise its defence with purpose. And it had better hope Russia loses this war. – Yours, etc,
CAOIMHÍN MAC UNFRAIDH,
Commander, Naval Service (rtd),
Cobh,
Co Cork.
Inheritance tax
Sir, – Michael McDowell’s excellent piece (“The world doesn’t owe the super rich tax-free status,” Opinion December 24th) targets, and rightly so, Ìrish citizens who accumulate vast wealth and then skip abroad to avoid paying appropriate tax.
As Mr McDowell says, our Constitution obliges the Oireachtas to promote a social order of justice and charity, and to serve the common good.
But any strictures, unlikely to be implemented under this Government, should also include measures to enforce higher taxation on inheritances. This, of course, should not usually affect spouses, and there should be sophisticated arrangements for farms, and certain family-like groupings.
However, it is unjust, and contrary to the common good, that as parents die, families keep accumulating, generation after generation, with adult children in comfortable middle and upper-class areas being left with up to €400,000 tax-free. Piling riches upon riches.
I know they want the tax- free windfall for a bigger car, house extension, or expensive schooling. But others, maybe without a home, need the money more. – Yours, etc,
PAUL MURRAY,
Dublin 6W.
Assembly vote on hunting
Sir, – Amid all the Christmas cheer, it’s sad that wildlife again had to pay the price of man’s inhumanity. Over the festive period, hares snatched from their natural habitats ran from hyped-up dogs, while fans cheered, laughed or marked their betting cards.
Cruelty aside, the Irish hare as a species has been in decline for the past half century. An iconic mammal, it is a subspecies of the mountain hare that is unique to this island, and as such you’d think our Government would prioritise its protection. Not so. Every attempt to have it banned has been resisted by the two largest political parties.
The wily fox fares no better than the gentle hare at Yuletide. Men and women dressed up in clown outfits see fit to chase these wild dogs until they fall down from exhaustion, after which they either find refuge underground or have the skin ripped off their bones by the pack.
A Dáil Bill proposing a ban on this obscenity was rejected by a whopping 124 to 24 just before Christmas, another reminder of the pro-hunt lobby’s wealth and power in Ireland, even though, ironically, the country from which we inherited this organised cruelty banned both hare coursing fox hunting 20 years ago.
Early in the new year, the Northern Ireland Assembly will vote on a Bill that seeks to ban all hunting with hounds. The numbers for and against the proposal in the Assembly are a lot tighter than in the Dáil, so the vote result is difficult to predict.
But fingers crossed that at least north of the Border compassion will soon replace barbarism in the way people interact with the creatures of field and forest.
North and South, campaigners against blood sports will not give up until we get fair play for the four-legged friends that enrich our ecosystem and bring colour to our verdant countryside.
These animals bring contentment and joy to people who reconnect with nature. Studies show that just observing them can help to improve one’s mental health.
Far from being persecuted, they ought to be treasured as part of Ireland’s wonderful and unique wildlife heritage. – Yours, etc,
JOHN FITZGERALD
Callan,
Co Kilkenny
Driving test delays
Sir, – Perhaps it’s time to charge a large deposit, refundable upon “showing up”, in addition to the application fee for a driving test. Maybe then, the no-shows will at least have the courtesy of cancelling in advance.
The waste of 8,550 hours of driver testing times is an absolute disgrace. If a person knows they are going to lose, say €200, for failing to turn up, they might think twice about not making an appearance! – Yours, etc
DEE DELANY,
Raheny,
Dublin 5.
