Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach. agus cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe go léir. Usually I make an apology if I am going to repeat myself but I am definitely going to repeat what has already been said. The need for guidelines is obvious. Even in the last week I have dealt with parents whose autistic child has had the AON but has changed over the years and there is now a presentation with ADHD. People have seen multiple private providers and others who have indicated the child has ADHD but they cannot get that assessed and therefore cannot get therapies for it. They are trying to go from the CDNT to CAMHS and are meeting all the issues referred to earlier that need to be dealt with in terms of the autism protocol. We are no further on on what needs to happen. I would also say in respect of people going to the North for assessments, in many cases the people who do the assessments are probably the people who worked previously in the HSE and the CDNTs anyway so it is an utter farce.

On special education teaching I will do my bit as a constituency TD. Scoil Mhuire na nGael, Darver National School, Scoil Naomh Lorcan and a whole pile more beyond that are all talking about being down hours. In some cases it is significant, in some cases it is five hours but I think we all know if a school is down five hours, that is a day's resources so we need to get real on this. The NCSC was before the Joint Committee on Disability Matters a fortnight ago. Its representatives said the review will not deal with complex needs or diagnostics so we are back to dealing with educational needs, literacy, numeracy and educational disadvantage. If complex needs are not being taken into account, from every one of those schools' point of view, I am going to make a mad assumption that the review process is a waste of time, even if it is a resource to the health services which Mr. Harris is saying it is not. I am fairly sure people can give me a one word answer on that. The witnesses are welcome to stop me if I am wrong but unfortunately this might be one of the few times that I am right.

It has already been said that we need a stop to this, we need an NCSE review. Deputy Clarke, Deputy O'Riordáin and I and many others have raised this issue and we get a defence of "consultation happened across the board". Obviously consultation did not happen with the witnesses and we have had teachers and principals organisations coming out and saying that they do not agree with it and that it is an absolute disaster. I could go out and consult with the country and then make the decision that I was going to make anyway and my consultation might not necessarily have been straightforward so a halt needs to be called to this. Is there an element also of wanting to funnel kids into special educational settings, into special schools?

We all understand the idea of complex needs. There are people who, if given the supports, will be able to attain literacy and numeracy but if they do not get the supports, they will not. We are in a disaster scenario and we can talk about the school inclusion model but put the supports and therapies where the need is, that goes without saying. The sooner, the better. We could go over and back but I do not see that there has been consultation. I do not see that there is a review process in place that can deliver either for the kids or the schools. I do not know who the consultation has been done with, other than us having a conversation on how we make do with the supports that we havebecause even if we got everything right in the morning, we do not have the people in positions and we are still dealing with the issue of health versus education.

How would the CDNT have proper information, the thing is absolutely failing from beginning to end? I am not taking away from people who are doing spectacular work in this area but Mr. Harris has said there is sufficient information there that could be used at this point in time and, beyond that, we need to provide flexibility. I know that is not exactly a question. I will conclude now if anyone else would like to comment.