Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, it is positive but we are working towards it being better and I want to acknowledge that.

I also want to acknowledge the role of the SNAs. Our schools could not function without the support that is given by them. The Senator is correct that we worked hard this year to have an earlier announcement. It is my ambition, to the best of my ability, to be able to deliver it on an ongoing basis and as early as possible. We have done significant work with SNAs and we have set up a unit within the Department for workforce planning. There are seven regional meetings to take place around the country to engage directly with SNAs on the issues they identify, whether it is training, supports or whatever. It is the first time we have done that and the Senator will also be aware of the qualification at level 6 that is being provided for SNAs. I recognise the value of SNAs and we will do all we can to work collaboratively with them. Workforce planning is the first step in that direction in terms of the unit within the Department.

With regard to school transport and parents driving their children to special classes and schools, this is taking its time. We will ultimately achieve the local provision of these services but it is not happening quickly enough. Our goal is that in everyone's local school there will be local provision for the young person who needs to avail of special education. We are seeing it improve and we can say that by the end of this year we will have almost 3,000 special classes available. We have seven special schools and the most recent two that were announced were in Cork and Dublin. We are building up resources all the time to make special education more accessible and to make it easier for people to access supports more readily in their communities.

There are two aspects to teacher training. There is the initial teacher education aspect, which is important because they are our teachers into the future. We have done a body of work on that and all the higher education institutes must have programmes that are registered with the Teaching Council. In 2020, the Teaching Council announced a new standard, céim, and within that there must be an inclusive approach to education across all of the experiences in initial teacher education. All of the 68 programmes across 14 institutes are working to achieve that accreditation. It has been achieved at first year for all of them and by the end of this year, in 2023, it will have been achieved by all of them. That means that all of our teachers coming out will have experience across the curricula they study of inclusive education, which is positive. I am not so sure about siloing it off into particular experiences; rather it is a good thing that it would be across all elements.

I will go a step further and say that in March I launched a policy statement for initial teacher education, which is the vision of my Department for the next ten years. In that I have clearly expressed that it is my determination that we will ultimately achieve a scenario where every student teacher will have had a placement in some type of special education setting. I accept that heretofore that might not have been possible because we did not have sufficient classes, special schools or whatever, and I am not saying we have that capacity but I am saying that is the clear direction of travel. No teacher should come out of training without having had experience in a special school setting and that is a clear objective in the policy statement.

For those who have been teaching for a long time, significant CPD is being provided, specifically for those who are setting up special classes. There are four days of intensive training, there is the whole-school visit with two days of training, there is support for the principal and there is an investment of an additional €13 million that has been provided to the NCSE. That speaks to the issue the Senator raised of parents having to do the work of going from this school to that and another school looking for places. That is not acceptable and it is not the way I would want it to be. Feeding into that has been the fact that we have not had enough special educational needs organisers, SENOs, on the ground. We will increase the number of staff within the NCSE by 50% and the objective is to build up that resource of staff to ensure there is a sufficiency of SENOs on the ground who are linking in with the parents all of the time.

Did I miss something else from the Senator's questions?