Ms Linda Kelly:

Fórsa welcomes the opportunity to address the Joint Committee on Autism on matters relating to the services and supports provided by the State for autistic people. The Chair has outlined who we are and that we have made a dual submission covering areas of health or education, so I will get straight into the detail of it.

The health policy areas that have already been mentioned by my colleagues impact on the lives of people diagnosed with autism across a number of policy areas. We cannot cover them all in this submission but we need to focus on some of the areas that are in crisis and require immediate Government and political intervention. These areas are: the funding arrangements within the community and voluntary sector; children’s disability network teams; and the need for a chief health and social care professional, HSCP, office within the Department of Health.

On the community and voluntary sector, everybody is well aware of the problematic funding arrangements that exist. We have included in our appendices to our submission a number of documents and research the union previously published. While those funding arrangements extend past the disability sector and impact across a number of different areas, they have a disproportionate impact on the provision of services to autistic people because of the impact on disability services. It is still unclear whether the additional €65 million announced last week by the Minister will prioritise having those pay claims addressed by staff within the sector. That is tied into the children’s disability network teams, whereby there are people working on the same teams and earning different rates of pay, which is untenable.

On the children’s disability network teams, it must be acknowledged that the reconfiguration of any service is a challenging change of environment, a challenge made even more difficult by the Covid-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding that, there are several significant issues within the service that can be addressed by the Government and the HSE if there is an investment in finance and leadership. Rather than take up all the time with my opening statement, I have included an appendix on the significant issues that are causing a massive recruitment and retention crisis within children’s disability network teams. This all stems from the fact that we have a lack of a chief HSCP office in the Department of Health. There is a clear and urgent need for the creation of this to bring a strategic focus in the Department of Health on all issues related to HSCPs. Similar to the funding arrangements, while this would encompass many areas outside of disability, it would have a positive impact on the roll-out of progressing disability services. We have set out a number of recommendations in the opening statement. I liked them so much that we included them twice.

I will move on to our submission on education. The Government’s approach to delivering an inclusive school system has been disjointed, confused, and marked by a failure to deliver on key policy commitments. This failure has let down many students, including autistic students, who stood to benefit from a more inclusive educational experience. The policy initiatives announced by successive Governments in this area have sought to fulfil the commitments enshrined within the EPSEN Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities but unfortunately these commitments have not been delivered. The blueprint for changing the nature of Ireland’s school system was set out by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, across several publications and policy announcements, including the development of policy advice to Government. The NCSE summarised these initiatives in its progress report on developing policy advice on special schools and classes in October 2019. The council stated that “substantive improvements” had been made "in the wider system of supports for students with special educational needs." However, the required changes have not been delivered.

The NCSE stated that in 2018 a demonstration project commenced to bring specialised therapies into 150 preschools and schools. In the schools sector some 75 schools participated in the pilot in community healthcare organisation, CHO 7.

To date, the evaluation of the pilot has not been published and there are not verifiable outcomes against which this approach can be measured in terms of educational achievements or improved learning.

The council also stated that the commencement of legislation to compel schools to open a special class would quickly improve provision. In fact, it was not until 2022 that the legislation was enacted and used. The council stated that in 2019, a new schools inclusion model was piloted aiming to build schools' capacity to include students with additional education and care needs. Again, no evaluation of the outcomes of the pilot has been published and the direction of Government policy remains unclear. The Department of Education informed schools that a new mechanism for allocating special needs assistants, SNAs, to mainstream classes would be implemented at the commencement of the 2022-23 school year.

Mr. Pike is telling me I can skip the rest of the submission and take it as read. In the time left, we will get straight to the meat of the issue, namely, the recommendations.

The recommendations are key from our perspective. The first is to abolish the statutory special needs assistant scheme and replace it with a national SNA service with staff allocated to every school. This would end the uncertainty for students and staff about the continuation of SNA supports year to year. Every school should be inclusive and every school needs a complement of SNAs to work with students with additional care needs. Second, the Government should establish a national school nursing service to provide advice, support and clinical care for students with complex medical needs in mainstream classes and special classes. Third, it should work with stakeholders to agree a robust redeployment scheme for SNAs to ensure the right staff are in the right place to deliver the service. Fourth, it should ensure the SNA workforce is properly trained and qualified to meet the need of students. The national SNA training programme must be accredited and should continue. The minimum essential qualification for SNAs should be modernised and accredited to at least Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, level 6. Fifth, each student should be facilitated with a pathway to mainstream class provision if it is right for them and if it is appropriate. This requires resourcing and assessment of school capacity and staffing requirements.

We are happy to go into detail on anything in the submission or its appendices. Mr. Pike was wrong that my Cork accent could not get through everything in the five minutes.