Primary teachers, in fully supporting the integration of students with special needs into mainstream schools, demanded a number of supports to allow them do this successfully.
They want all the necessary support mechanisms to be put in place, more staff appointed, smaller classes and grants to be paid to schools that have students with special needs.
One delegate, Ms Mary Burke, said her son "could not have been comfortably integrated into any of the mainstream schools in our local area because the resources are still not available".
Surely, she said, "cherishing all of our children equally means allowing them the basic right to an education in their local area if their parents wish it, with their peers, giving them an opportunity to have friends locally instead of living lives of lonely isolation". Integration of children with special needs "has to be supported to the hilt", she said.
Another delegate, Ms Denis Bohane, a member of the union's central executive committee, said "it is too late for my child; don't let it be too late for all the children out there who deserve the best this country can offer".
Ms Kayren Hayes, a member of the union's equality committee, told delegates that she had had up to four students with special needs in her class in some years.
"We have had a special class in our school for over 13 years. In spite of my commitment I have never received any in-service to help me. There seems to be a general perception that the more rural the school, the need for a back-up service is less. We condemn the lack of outside help," she said.
A delegate from a Dublin branch, Ms Nora Lawler, said that in her class there were many students with special needs but with the numbers "I cannot close the door. There are too many bodies in the room, too many chairs", she said. One boy, after being cooped up in her classroom, was seen in his wheelchair speeding along the corridor, she said.
She urged delegates to vote for the support mechanisms to be put in place.
Mr John Brennan, an delegate from Dublin South county, asked delegates to vote for the motion. "We have to make integration a reality," he said.
Ms Ena Fitzpatrick, a member of the INTO's education committee, said her school has two classes for children with autism. "This is only as a result of the parents taking a High Court action," she said.
Ms Carmel Niland from Tuam told how 10 years ago, five children with special needs enrolled in her school. "Six years later, after a lot of begging, we got a resource teacher," she said.
"This teacher is shared with six other schools," she said but "cannot take the children until they have been assessed" and the school was still trying to overcome this hurdle.