Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is all vital. In fairness, I welcome the fact that the Minister spoke about learnings. We all talk about learnings being made, which they have been and will continue to be. We will not get this perfectly in one go. It is about delivering this to as many children and families as possible who require it.

When we talk about provision of autistic spectrum disorder, ASD, units, I have seen a huge amount of interaction between the special educational needs officers, SENO, and individual schools. At times, there are particular issues around building work and space and constraints. I have spoken to the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, in this regard. I welcome the fact that we are talking about an expansion to the number of SENOs and whatever. We need to make sure all this is done to an optimum level from a point of view of delivery. The bit that did not make sense was the fact that there were so many kids going through primary school and while we might not have had all the data we needed, we had enough data to know we were going to have a difficulty and that we did not have the provision.

I will ask a question that was put to me by the Irish Primary Principals Network, IPPN and others. Would it make sense with regard to disability provision that there could be an allowance, let us say, where parents would be able to apply to a school two years beforehand? Therefore, the school would also be aware of the input they may have and the requirements that would be necessary. I am never sure we will ever get down to a point where we will have enough special educational needs, SEN, teachers or special needs assistants, SNAs. I am aware of the great work that has been done. I have spoken about my wee lad being in St. Joseph's National School in Dundalk and the work done by teaching staff and also SNAs, and I talk about what is happening with him in Ó Fiaich College at the minute. He is in mainstream and the school does not have an ASD unit. My point is that we have been talking in this committee about silos as well. It is the idea that there are kids who may need to be in an ASD unit but then possibly move and whatever else. My term for today is going to be "flexibility" but we do need to see that.

We need much interaction with regard to two things, one of which is the assessment of needs. We all accept that is a right but it is finding the solution that works for every kid and being able to deliver as soon as possible an actual educational plan to facilitate kids' transition, particularly between the bit of responsibility that falls within the Minister's Department, which is primary to secondary. That is accepting that every plan will change as time goes on. This point has been brought up multiple times and I get that it does not fall completely within the Minister's gift.

There needs to be interaction from a point of view of providing the services. Everyone is talking about best practice. We all know we do not have enough of any type of therapist at this time. It is about putting the service where the need is. In a lot of cases, school is the perfect place for that. I have seen the advantages that can be provided by teachers and SNAs. I am not saying they can fill that gap but we know they try to employ best practice. If there is a crossover and an interaction with therapists, psychologists and whoever necessary, that will be a benefit to everybody. We really need to look at assistive technologies. The wider issue is that if we are talking about assistive technologies, we need to look at augmentative and alternative communication, AAC, in the round. We all know about Fiacre Ryan and the use of the rapid prompting method, RPM, and whatever else. While I am not talking about one specific technology, we need to look at whatever works on a bespoke basis for each kid. In fairness, I have left the Minister with ten seconds to answer about 16 questions.