Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Fianna Fáil for allowing me some of its speaking time on this extremely important Private Members' motion, because nothing is more important than the children of our State, particularly children with special needs. Our children are citizens of the State, to be held in equal respect. What the Minister proposed in recent weeks - 12% cuts to special needs resources - was a disgrace. It would have meant that pupils had an hour and a quarter less resource teaching per week than was the case before 2011, with a 25% cut for children with autism.

I am not going to fawn over the Minister's U-turn because, as Deputy Dooley rightly pointed out, it happened because of people power, including that of parents who came here this evening. The Minister for Education and Skills knew they were coming and he knew this Private Members' motion was coming before the House. I thank each and every person who travelled from all over the country. As the Minister of State knows, it is not easy for people who have children with special needs to leave their homes - many brought their children with them - and come here to wage their protest on Kildare Street and let the Government know how hard it is for those people to survive and struggle. When they see further cuts to special needs provision at budget time it is no wonder they are angry.

I met a single mother outside this evening and she is going into hospital tonight after protesting here because of the stress and the effect all of this pressure is having on her health. Her child's grandparents will mind the child for the next few days. That woman was in bits. I listened to every word she told me. I thanked her for coming and telling me her story. I told her I would say in the House tonight that there are people who are under tremendous physical and mental pressure. The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, has special responsibility for mental health. I have said it before: these cuts are too near to the bone.

There must be a lifting of the cap on special needs assistants, SNAs. The number of SNAs provided must be increased. There can be no question about it. Whatever else will be cut, and wherever the money will come from, these are sacrosanct and must be enshrined. The parents of children with special needs must be safe and happy in the knowledge that the services they have will not be further cut, and that where the services are inadequate they will be enhanced to ensure their children have the same rights and benefits as children who do not have special needs. They must know that those children will be nurtured and will be given everything they need to bring them to their maximum potential. That is of vital importance.

Deputy Dooley raised a very important issue which has been brought to my attention in the past. I have had meetings in my constituency with guidance teachers who told me they were in no doubt that their interventions in their roles as guidance counsellors had saved young people who had had suicidal thoughts and were in a very dark place. They had the training and the time to catch a student who was in such a vulnerable situation. Now that is being taken away from them with the cuts to guidance teachers. Deputy Dooley was correct when he said it was a disgraceful cut. I am not being alarmist or saying anything out of order when I say that this cut is extremely dangerous. I have said this before in the House. It is leaving students who are vulnerable without someone who they feel is available and who has the time to give to them.

The Ceann Comhairle has a good memory and may remember my attempt to raise the following issue with the Taoiseach. I will raise it now because it ties in with this Private Members' motion. In Killarney town there is an excellent family support service offering after-school activities to children with special needs called Home from Home. I have visited the home on numerous occasions and I have friends who benefit from it. The children need a one-on-one service. This vital service has not received the recognition of adequate structured funding which it so deserves. The service has survived only because of the good will of the public and fund-raising. The Taoiseach was very generous in a personal capacity to the home and I thank and applaud him for that, but where does the service go from there? People have grown to rely on that service, and then they see no structured funding. One cannot keep fund-raising all the time because one is going back to the same people over and over again and people do not have enough money to be generous to that level. A service such as Home from Home requires a lot of money and it is extremely difficult to raise it.

I am coming back to equality and respect. Here is one thing the people outside tonight expressed to me, and every person is of the same opinion. We have heard the disgraceful, disgusting and despicable talk that went on between bankers who were laughing at the fact that billions of euro were being lost each day.

When I and these parents think of how they are managing and struggling to survive and yet these people are still out there, it is criminal. The Criminal Assets Bureau should have been brought in and those people should be stripped of their personal assets. To be quite honest, they should be in jail for what they did because it was treason of the utmost; it was a disgrace. They have marred this country forever. They have placed a burden of debt on us, on our children and on our grandchildren. Look at the effect it is having on people who have special needs and special disabilities. Is it any wonder those highly respectable parents who were outside the gates of Leinster House tonight - I thank them again for coming here - are angry when they turn on their radio in the morning and hear what these disgraceful people were saying and they way they were laughing and mocking? They will never be forgiven for it and they will never be forgotten for it.

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