Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and her officials for attending. Parents are raising a number of issues with me, one of which is contingency planning. We had the initial lockdown last year and when the children went back there was the summer programme. Parents are of the view that there was no contingency planning at that time for further lockdowns. We saw this coming to the fore in January when the services were supposed to open but did not open. Contingency planning is required in all aspects of Covid but particularly for special educational needs. What kind of contingency planning is being done now for this year so that if another lockdown were to occur, we could see that there is a plan in place? We have enough experience now to know what to do and how to do it.

Many parents have also told me that there has been very little real engagement with them. While organisations may speak on behalf of parents, we find that parents themselves are not involved in the system. At one of the first meetings of this committee, someone stated - I cannot recall who it was - that the lack of engagement by the Department on children with special needs and their parents had created a lot of problems. That was probably last July or August. At that time, the parents asked that this would not happen again but it seems to be happening again.

I welcome that there will be 1,200 additional school places for next year. That is fine. I am, however, concerned about the reassignment of staff involved in special educational needs to contact tracing. Are all of them back doing what they should be doing?

Given that remote learning is very challenging for many children, why do we insist that they engage in remote learning? This question keeps arising. Children have a high and a low where they are in school one day and not in school the next day. We need to get this right. It is not easy. We all agree that we do not have a reference point for this. However, many parents are very angry because they are not being listened to. I ask the Department, the officials and the Minister of State to place more emphasis on that aspect to try to make sure parents feel they are part of the solution.

How will children catch up? What plans are being put in place to enable them to get back to where they were previously? It is fine to sending children back to school but they need additional help now. Is this being planned for?