The Irish curriculum claims to encourage students to show respect for others and inspire empathy and emotional sensitivity yet for years the Irish language curriculum has forced students to watch and study Cáca Milis, a film that blatantly contradicts these values it aims to teach.

The film is completely and utterly disrespectful to those living with disabilities, particularly those that cause individuals to have the behaviors mocked throughout the film. The traits portrayed by Paul in the film are exaggerated to encourage the audience to empathize with Catherine, in the process reducing the struggles of people with disabilities and showing a view of them that deems them unworthy of respect. These ideas being pushed towards youth without any discussion of the negative impacts of the portrayal is detrimental to a community that is already incredibly under and misrepresented throughout the education system and countries supports as a whole.

The entire view of Paul as a character is designed and manipulated to suggest that he is disgusting, any student with insecurities regarding how they eat and other issues relating to food and weight regardless of cause can be affected negatively by this. No department or study resources found in our research encouraged any discussion on the negative impact of this film, which is in itself horrifying. There is a complete ignorance of the influence of a portrayal of disabilities like this in the education system, particularly to the already disadvantaged community of students with intellectual or physical disabilities being forced to study this film at second level.

The continued inclusion of this film in the curriculum is a blatant disregard of student wellbeing. In an ever more socially-conscious Ireland our educational resources should change to reflect this, the original inclusion of this film was an insensitive decision and by it remaining on the Irish syllabus it is only negatively affecting more students. If empathy and respect is what the Irish curriculum wants to promote, then Cáca Milis can not remain as part of it.