It is looking like the schools might reopen in some fashion on 1 March, maybe for junior infants, senior infants and up to second class, and leaving certificate and fifth-year students. There are positive signs from the Cabinet subcommittee but nothing has been set in stone. The reopening of schools is the single most important action that we can take for students' physical movement, education and socialisation, and it will be a huge relief for a lot of parents. I am at a loss as to how the same collective empathy and efforts were not there for pupils of special education. Everyone should have rowed in behind the Minister with responsibility for special education to get pupils back to school as has been done in the North and in most of the countries in western Europe. Half of all primary school children could be back at school on Monday week but ten days before that we only have 50% attendance at special schools. Special classes are due to open on Monday but many parents have not received a communication from the schools about those arrangements and there is a lot of anxiety out there. Last night, Fórsa issued a statement about a work to rule in terms of special needs assistants and caused a lot of anxiety this morning concerning the purpose of that statement. There are a lot of worried parents and I feel that the language around this has been all wrong. Where is our collective will for such a vulnerable group?

I wish to mention another issue. Consideration must be given to exempting the strict two-year rule for early childhood care and education, ECCE. I ask because pupils who have special needs, and may have had their assessment of needs as part of ECCE, have had a very disrupted two years. Some of their parents, teachers and principals of the preschools feel that these pupils should remain in ECCE for another year. They have been told that they cannot and there needs to be some reflection on that.

It is no secret that I was a member of Óglaigh na hÉireann. For a number of years I was stationed in the western command in Dún Uí Mhaoilíosa in Galway. I am very proud of my time in Óglaigh na hÉireann.

On Monday of this week, I was contacted about the commemoration of an IRA bomber in London. Looking at Senator Fitzpatrick and the brave men that she referred to a few moments ago, I wish to say that these people who went to London and bombed places, bombed people out of their homes in Northern Ireland, and terrorised people to hell and back do not fit into the same category as the people the Senator spoke about. To use the term Óglaigh na hÉireann for members of the Provisional IRA, or any of their trappings, to my mind is an outrage. It is an absolute insult to the fine men and women who have served this country since the State was founded, and to those who put their lives at risk in the name of peace all over the world. These cowardly so-and-sos who instructed or coerced that young man to take a bomb to London, these are the same so-and-sos who rang my mother at 3 o'clock in the morning to tell her that I would be shot, or my father.

A couple of weeks ago the Cathaoirleach gave me great leeway to speak about getting past where we are now and the constant statement "They haven't gone away, you know". When they use the words "Óglaigh na hÉireann" to commemorate bombers, including online, they insult this country. I have tried my damnedest to be fair to Sinn Féin since coming into this House. There are some wonderful parliamentarians in Sinn Féin, some really talented people, but they seem to have a block when it comes to saying "What you are doing and saying is wrong". I ask that the Sinn Féin Party step out and say it is a normal political party and does not accept the trappings of commemorating bombers who killed innocent people. There is only one Óglaigh na hÉireann in this country. It is our Army, our Air Corps and our Naval Service, and I am damned proud we have them.