Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate and compliment my colleague for providing Members on all sides with a chance to reflect on the approach to education for children with disabilities.

Over the course of the last week I have been contacted, like many colleagues, by many people who were rightly enraged and disgusted by the decision to cut resource hours and special needs assistants for people with intellectual and physical disabilities. Last Thursday the Tánaiste denied when questioned on the floor of the Dáil that there would be any reduction in resource hours and special needs assistants in the next school year. We knew then that it was untrue and everyone knows now. I welcome the announcement by the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, yesterday that the Government will hire 500 additional resource teachers to deal with the increased demand. More important than any Member's welcome for the announcement is the great relief it brought to the parents of the 42,500 children who require additional help. That is what is most important.

In his speech on the motion last night the Minister attempted to deflect his responsibility to the National Council for Special Education. Is it not true to say the knew of the decision for the past three weeks and, ultimately, sanctioned the cut as Minister? Why has extensive media coverage outlining the inhumane, inequitable and unfair nature of the decision been required? Why have so many parents of children with disabilities had to give up their precious and scarce time to contact Deputies and take to the airwaves and streets?

Why did it take this Private Members' motion for the Government to acknowledge that it is fundamentally wrong deliberately to target children with disabilities for further cuts - cuts on top of the 10% reduction in June 2011 and the 5% reduction in June 2012? This is despite the Government's solemn pledge to protect front-line services.

I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, will agree that resource teachers and SNAs are front-line services. It is only in recent days we realised that 90% of the €3 million for autism remains unspent. What confidence can people have in the priority the Government has given to children with disabilities when decisions such as these are being made?

The Minister apologised for the unnecessary anxiety the decision caused and I acknowledge that he was man enough to admit his mistake. If this was his first mistake, it could be forgiven but he made a mistake in his first budget in relation to DEIS schools, another section in society that is very disadvantaged and marginalised. There was the debacle of Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI. It was a fiasco. Even today I was making telephone calls on behalf of students who so badly need the financial support and who are still waiting for it to be administered. Is it any wonder there is widespread scepticism about the assurances the Minister gave last night?

Last night, the Minister, Deputy Quinn, stated: "Parents who may have been frightened by reports of cuts need have no fears that their child will be denied access to an SNA." There will be 2,000 more children in need of an SNA in September 2013 than there were in June 2012, with no increase in the number of SNAs. It is disingenuous to talk of a cap placed in 2010 knowing full well that the number of children in need of this service has increased dramatically since then.

Last night, the Minister spoke of children having access to special needs assistants. These children require much more than having access. They require the full support of an SNA to ensure that, despite their disabilities, they too will have the opportunity to reach their full potential and that we fulfil our obligations under the Proclamation to cherish "all the children of the nation equally".

The previous week has shown the urgent need for the full implementation of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004, which places inclusion at the heart of practice and states that children with special educational needs will be educated in an inclusive environment. I welcome the National Council for Special Education policy paper supporting students with special needs published in May of this year. However, one would wonder why the Minister made the decisions of last week without first looking at implementing this plan in conjunction with the parents, all the stakeholders and the children. We all agree we need a robust regulatory framework and that we must maximise the €1.3 billion annual budget in special education to ensure greater efficiencies so that resources are available for the full implementation of this Act and to ensure all those in need of support get it.

As my party's spokesperson on children, I wish to highlight the current gap in the legislative framework with regard to early childhood care and education provision for those with special educational needs. I implore that the relevant section in the Department of Education and Skills would engage with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs as a priority. Others have outlined that we must look at the transition, from primary to post-primary. We also need to look at early childhood education - the most formative years of a child's life - and the transition from those years to primary education. I commend the motion of my colleague to the House.

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