Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses to this afternoon's meeting and thank them for their time. I thank Senator Moran for bringing a focus to this relevant and important issue. It is clear from her contribution that she has done a great deal of background work on it. I genuinely and heartily welcome this committee's focus on the role of SNAs. This issue has been a passion of mine for my entire professional life, as a parent, as a politician and as a former principal. Special needs education has always mattered to me dearly. I genuinely welcome the opportunity to bring a focus to it today.

I want to begin by commending Ms Lynch, who probably summed up what I have been feeling on this issue for quite some time. I spent much of my time as a principal and as a classroom teacher trying to advise parents that less is sometimes more when it comes to resources. Special needs learning is not a numbers game. Ms Lynch hit the nail on the head, from my experience and my perspective, when she said that "parents often get caught in a fight for any resource rather than a fight for the right resource". There are good SNAs and SNAs who are not so good, just as there are good teachers and teachers who are not so good. I used to see children going out to resource teachers for 20 or 30 minutes of the school day. A good resource teacher is great for the child and for everybody, but a resource teacher who is not so good - they exist as well - will not be of much benefit to the child. Children in the latter set of circumstances can lose out on what is going on in the classroom socially and academically and in terms of a general overview of what is happening in the room.

We have to be careful not to get too tied up on numbers. While resources are important, numbers do not represent the bottom line. This is not like a maths academy. Special needs learning is much more complicated than that. It is really crucial for the role of the SNA to be brought to the fore in any discussion. Let us call a spade a spade - there are many SNAs who are quite unhelpful. Parents are beginning to realise that if the SNA is doing the homework or the sum for the child, because he or she sees that as the role of the SNA, it is very disruptive for the child's learning. Good awareness on everybody's part is needed to ensure people are clear on the role of SNAs. We need to ensure each SNA does not cross the line by becoming an enabler who prevents the child from participating and learning and who is a disruptive force rather than a productive one.

I cannot stress enough the importance of the discussion we are having here today. I would like to raise a couple of issues. I suggest that Mr. Robinson's contribution missed the point of this meeting. Perhaps it is the committee's fault for not advising him appropriately. I would have preferred to hear the union set out some of the feedback from its members who are SNAs on the ground about their frustrations with the role, their experience and understanding of the role and their desire for clarification of the role. That is what I was hoping to get from the union's presentation. Instead, I felt that it was a party political broadcast on behalf of IMPACT.

I would like to ask a few questions. One of my biggest fears and challenges relates to the transition from primary school to secondary school. This issue has not been addressed here. Do any of the witnesses have a contribution to make on that? I am thinking particularly of Ms Griffin and of the official from the Department of Education and Skills. Where are we in this regard? It seems to me that special needs provision at primary school level is fairly well advanced. It has come on in leaps and bounds. I am quite proud of the services that are available in our primary schools, but I have huge concerns about the transition to second level and the level of provision at that level. I would be interested to hear the witnesses' views on that.

Ms Griffin suggested that the role of SNAs is not understood by parents. I appreciated that she has presented a leaflet. I look forward to getting it in a while. I imagine we are 20 years into the SNA journey. I am not sure, but I am guessing that there were SNAs in our schools 20 years ago. Have we really spent 20 years trying to get this across to parents? Have we taken our eye off the ball?

This is not about apportioning blame. I am simply wondering why, after 20 years, parents still do not understand the role they have. One of the major problems is that parents feel they need a full-time special needs assistant or ten or 12 hours' resource teaching and so forth. This is the key to the issue. As long as parents do not fully understand the benefit and impact of these resources on their children's education, we will continue to lose the battle. While I welcome the leaflet, I wonder whether enough has been done in this regard over the past 20 years.

I recently submitted a parliamentary question to the Minister on the role of special needs assistants in individual education plans, IEPs. At a recent meeting with me, representatives of Autism West Cork were at a loss to understand the reason special needs assistants do not attend meetings on the preparation of an individual education plan. It appears this practice is widespread. I find it extraordinary and a matter of great concern that the special needs assistant is not present when the group of people who know the child best is preparing an individual education plan. The parents I met all understood that special needs assistants are not allowed to attend these meetings. This issue needs to be addressed.

The other issue is the need to address the transition cycle.