Ms Lorraine Dempsey:

Regarding legislation and accountability, because there has not been full implementation of the EPSEN Act, we have skirted around it with other legislation. Many of my colleagues on the committee were party to discussions around the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill and the student and parent charter, and the impact they would have on ministerial accountability for allocation of school places for individual children. Somebody asked about the SENOs earlier. We need people with teeth who can advocate for our children and not wholly act as gatekeepers. That is the way parents currently see them.

On Deputy Nolan's point in respect of the postcode lottery, there are national programmes to develop children's disability network teams where access to services is delivered regardless of the school setting or where the child is living. One can move from any school setting or any county and the model of service delivery and access to those services should be the same, albeit with challenges around resources. That will get rid of the postcode lottery we have currently.

In the context of children having an assessment that leads to a diagnosis - the Deputy referred to children on the autism spectrum - they do not have a statutory right to intervention. It stops at the assessment. The statement a child gets will state when and where those interventions should be delivered. However, we have seen reports which state that these interventions will be delivered in 56 months because while there is a statutory requirement to put the actual date on the statement, there is no requirement to deliver. Again, people must have a statutory right to the delivery of interventions that will actually lead to positive outcomes for children, because it is not about whether somebody gets a block of six speech and language therapy sessions, it is about the outcome we are seeking to achieve. That is what we all need to move towards because we are very focused on inputs but not what it means for the child in long-term outcomes.

In terms of accountability, I go back to Deputy Ó Ríordáin and how he set out the relationship between the Minister, the Government, schools and boards of management which puts children as piggy in the middle. I have stated before that we can complain to our local schools, go through complaints processes and we hit an impasse when it gets to board level. The SENOs do not have teeth to take any action, the schools say there are not adequate resources, the SENOs say there are and the child ends up outside of school. We continue this, year after year. All the Deputies and Senators have had public representations from their constituents which portray the vicious cycle in the middle of which children constantly find themselves, without a school place that can actually meet their needs.