Excluding students with Down syndrome is a form of discrimination

The Minister for Education & Skills, Mr Joe McHugh opened the Summer Provision programme for this year to include children with Down syndrome.
The Minister made no distinction between those attending pre-school, primary school and those attending post-primary school. Now that the Department of Education has published restrictions on who can access the programme, we find that the scheme is not open to the majority of post-primary school students, nor to students transitioning from preschool into mainstream primary schools. (More details on the link above)

Time to get emailing and ringing your TD’s to voice your opinion at this discrimination:

Email address with links

Your TD’s for Galway West
Your TD’s for Galway East
Your TD’s for Galway and Roscommon
Your MEP’s for Midland-North-West
Your councillors for Conamara South and North
Your councillors for Galway City Central
Your councillors for Galway City East
Your councillors for Galway City West
Your councillors for Athenry and Oranmore
Your councillors for Ballinasloe
Your councillors for Loughrea and Gort – Kinvara
Your councillors for Tuam
Minister for Education and Skills – Joe McHugh TD
Your Taoiseach’s office
Sample Email:
To ,

When the Minister for Education & Skills, Mr Joe McHugh opened the Summer Provision programme for this year to include children with Down Syndrome, he made no distinction.

Now that the Department of Education has published restrictions on who can access the programme, we find that the scheme is not open to the majority of post-primary school students, nor to students transitioning from preschool into mainstream primary schools.

In fact, a Mainstream school with 10 children and 4 teachers that were willing to put on the programme have been refused.

We didn’t think that it was possible to add to our stress but that is exactly what this Summer Programme has done to many of our over 300 members in the DS Galway Branch.

Please be our Voice and explain to Joe McHugh and the Department for Education and Skills that our young members transitioning from preschool into mainstream primary schools and our many post-primary school students, deserve this opportunity, as well as it being essential, that they are educated during the Summer months.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.
Kind regards