Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their questions and observations. I will start with Deputy Funchion's queries. We covered transportation but I will give her a few figures. She asked about the amount of money involved yearly. The cost of the school transport scheme in 2018 amounted to €200 million. This is an increase from over €171 million in 2011. The main reason for this increase in cost is the provision of special educational needs transport, which now accounts for over 50% of the total cost of the scheme. I am quite conscious that many of our very vulnerable young people have to travel large distances to get to the appropriate school. This is very evident when I visit mainstream schools and special schools.

The number of children on special educational needs, SEN, transport has increased from 9,200 pupils in 2013 to more than 13,000 pupils in 2018. This is reflected in the increase in classes as well. The number of special classes has gone from 475 to about 1,500 this year. The cost of the provision of SEN transport has increased from just over €60 million in 2011 to €106 million in 2018. Lastly, for the purpose of the public record of the committee, the main cost of contractors providing SEN services rose from around €42 million in 2011 to €73 million in 2018. The cost of the provision of school bus escorts has gone from €15 million to €29 million in 2018.

That is not where the complication is. As the Deputy correctly identified, the complication relates to school transport and getting children to a traditional school of choice or a school that respects the integrity of their area. That is mainly a matter for primary level. The changes we are seeking to make relate to second level schools.

The Deputy referred to special needs assistants and complications there and used the term "blockage in the system". The people who come to my constituency office are waiting for a diagnosis report. I want to get away from that as do the members of the committee. We all want the same model whereby the school is profiled rather than to have one-to-one special needs assistance. One of the key recommendations of the SNA review was around the stigmatisation and alienation children in fourth, fifth and sixth class feel with one-to-one SNA provision. That is at one level. The Deputy was talking about the more complex area. I want to focus on the pilot project we will commence in September to see how we can take a more integrated approach to identify a young person's needs at preschool level rather than to require parents to go through the hardship and difficulty of dealing with matters at the first point of entry into primary school. A great deal of the knowledge, data and intelligence the system has at preschool should determine what happens at primary school. It is about reprofiling the schools whereby the school does not rely on demand-led, one-to-one assessment or diagnosis. We need to get away from that system.

I hope through our vigilance at political level, we can consider how to take a more joined-up approach, including to the training SNAs need. Even where children have complex medical needs, parents want their children to be in a mainstream setting. They want that choice and we should be able to afford it to them. However, it will require the training of SNAs. We do not have a higher training authority for SNAs currently but that will go hand in glove with the pilot project. It will ensure the experience SNAs have built up over the last two decades will be taken into account where they seek to retrain and equip themselves with the skills needed for more complex cases. They will be afforded the opportunity to do that. Many SNAs want certainty. Trying to find a job is difficult. I hear from my colleagues nationally that even though we have 16,000 SNAs, representing a 45% increase since 2011, that uncertainty continues to exist because the SNA follows the student instead of working under a whole-school model which provides greater long-term certainty. That is the place I want to get to. With the committee's help, there will be other areas in which we can work together.

Deputy Naughton raised the matter of DEIS schools. DEIS schools were selected on a geographical basis. As a result, geographical areas which did not fall into particular socioeconomic categories were completely left out. I have received a lot of representations from schools which are not in the DEIS programme. Whereas in the past DEIS status was somewhat of a stigma and schools were questioning whether or not to enter the scheme, we have the opposite situation now. Schools that have DEIS status want to maintain it and those without it want it because they see how it contributes to the development of the individual child. We have collected all the data and will be ready at the end of the first quarter of 2019 to carry out a demographic and socioeconomic analysis of the country with a view to putting in place a more gradual and targeted approach to DEIS. It will require a great deal of work to ensure we meet the needs of the most vulnerable in schools. It is a matter of different DEIS bands for some schools while other schools see value in home-school liaison. There is a meal programme and other extra resources to address class size, for example. All of these provide added advantages for a school. One of the things I will make an integral part of the three-year plan for the Department is bridging the gap between DEIS and non-DEIS schools. It is already happening to an extent, but there is more we can do to advance the process.

The other thing is to look at progression. We are very lucky in where we have got to in the space of ten years. For example, staff at Larkin Community College in Dublin city centre tell me they now have an 80% progression rate to diploma, apprenticeship and higher and third level education. It represents massive progress at that DEIS school. A lot of schools are aiming to replicate that achievement and I want to look at a more targeted approach to help them.

Deputy Catherine Martin referred to new entrant teachers and equal pay for equal work. I am on the public record as saying there is unfinished business in this regard. Obviously, we are working within the parameters of the public sector stability agreement. I am conscious of the fact one creates that vulnerability in a staff room setting where some people around the table for a cup of tea are getting less money than others to do the same job. It is a negative of which I am conscious. The unions are working on this and it is something I have discussed with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe. I am also conscious that the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, has been through this in the context of the recent nurses' strike. I want to create a pathway whereby we have done work prior to the end of 2020 to bring about this resolution. There were changes in 2011 to the grade at which primary and secondary school teachers came into the system. It is about acknowledgement of the higher diploma in education for secondary teachers and of the post-graduate certificate of education which primary school teachers hold. I want to continue to work within the framework of the public service stability agreement to see how we can move towards a place in the next round where this is eliminated.