Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ms Howard mentioned a co-ordinator of special needs in every school, which would be extremely helpful across schools. You need to monitor the supports kids are getting because you would hear anecdotal evidence that some of the learning supports are not being received within schools. The point was made by Ms Kelly about an absence of leadership in the HSE and I totally concur. At a management level the HSE is failing and those failings are letting down families and children. If that was in any other business people in those positions would not be in those positions any longer because the company would fail. The reality is it is children and families that are suffering because of that lack of leadership at that level to make sure we have the professionals in place. The reality is we do not have sufficient places within our third level system, be it speech and language or occupational therapy, to have qualified people coming out of the system to fill the roles we need. The witnesses mentioned the workplace plan the HSE had, and I forget the number that is needed, but we do not have sufficient qualified people coming out of the third level system to fill those roles even if everybody coming out of that system was employed by the HSE, and that will not happen because people will go into private practice or go abroad. There is a leadership issue within the HSE.

The appointment of a chief HSCP officer was mentioned and that is needed. We need a health ombudsman to rule over issues within the health system because when you put in a complaint it is often the person you are complaining about who answers you. We have a Garda Ombudsman etc. and we need someone similar in health to allow parents and people to complain about where there are deficiencies within the system.

On the school inclusion model, I totally concur that we have not seen a report. We hear anecdotal evidence that it was successful and so on but we need to see that. It is something that should be rolled out across the country. You should not take children out of the comforts of their classroom and bring them into a clinical setting for a half-hour session with their parents taking time off work, when that support could be given within the comfortable surrounds of their school. That is something that needs to be pushed on and rolled out.

What would Fórsa think, as a trade union, about the proposal for ECCE staff to work in summer provision?