Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I apologise for being late but I was listening in on Teams. I thank the Minister of State for his presentation. It is great to see that there has been a significant reduction in the number of children waiting for school places in September. I look forward to the full roll-out of the model where applications are done up to two years in advance so that parents can know six months before September that their child has a place and do not have to be waiting over the summer.

I have a couple of points. I do not want to go back over questions that the Minister of State has already answered. I just want to highlight an issue in my local area where a number of families have children who are on a waiting list for a place in a special school in Longford. I ask that the Minister of State would take this information away. We have had a fantastic school, St. Christopher's, for over 50 years. I would like to make sure that whatever supports and access are needed are put in place to make sure those families have places. I am working with a number of them who are on a waiting list.

That needs to be dealt with immediately, as far as I am concerned, so I ask the Minister of State to take it on board.

On the summer programme, I chaired the joint committee on autism, as the Minister of State knows, and we still have our all-party committee on autism, which meets on monthly basis. The Minister of State was in with us before the recess. We produced a special report on the summer programme. We worked with the Department of special education, including the then Minister of State, former Deputy Madigan, and officials, to expand the number of people eligible to work in it to try to ensure more schools would take part. Unfortunately, it is still the case that around 50% of the schools are not taking part. It should be mandatory for every special school. What are the thoughts on putting it in place? Will the Minister of State re-examine the report? The reason one school in the southern half of the country gave for not doing the summer programme was that the school was being used for summer camps run by someone who was hiring it privately. That is not acceptable. We need to get to a place where the summer programme is in place in every special school. These schools have the kids with the greatest needs. We had a case where the principal of a special school approached a mainstream school to see whether the kids could do the summer programme in it. That is not acceptable.

The Minister of State referred to speech and language therapists coming into schools. They are to be employed by the NCSE. I welcome that. A significant number of kids in special schools are non-verbal. The previous committee did a great deal of work in this area. We had young Fiacre Ryan from Mayo in with us. He was the first child to sit the leaving certificate exams using the rapid prompting method, RPM, of communication, yet that is still not acceptable within our education system. In two weeks' time, we will have the first meeting of the term of the new all-party committee. I will have a parent and a teacher who teaches RPM before the committee to show how it works and that it can be done. I have seen the results. Children are able to communicate by using this method of communication. I ask that this be looked at, particularly in order that non-verbal kids can communicate while we are bringing in the speech and language therapists. I ask the Minister of State to deal with those few questions first.