Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister of State and the Department officials. I welcome that there will be an increase in the staffing level of the NCSE. It is badly needed. At the time representatives of the NCSE appeared before the autism committee, there had been a significant increase in the number of administrative staff but not in the number of SENOs. Like Senator Seery Kearney, I have heard from parents who were handed a list of schools and told to go off and look for a place. It is soul-destroying for them and for their children when they receive refusal after refusal. Why does that have to happen? If a child starts in preschool and is availing of the access and inclusion model, AIM, programme, there should be joined-up thinking whereby that information is passed on to primary schools, in order that we know how many special class places are needed at primary level, and from there to the secondary schools. No child should be without a place. Needs might change but that should be monitored on an ongoing basis. Needs do not change that much. No parent should be scrambling for a place and having to worry about securing one. A mother contacted me recently whose child is in third class. She is already worried about where that child will go in four years. Will we see better, more joined-thinking between the three school stages and better planning for spaces?

We are here to discuss a vision for inclusive education. We have obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, to provide inclusive education in the State but that is not happening at the moment. I hear from increasing numbers of parents who are opting to send their child to a special school rather than an autism class in a mainstream school. The main reason they do so is the lack of appropriate training of staff. One parent in County Monaghan told me she is moving her son because his mainstream placement was causing him more harm than good. That child is now in a special school. Parents are nervous of not sending their children to a special school because they do not have confidence in the autism classes within the mainstream provision. That confidence must be built. The school inclusion model is an excellent model but it needs to be rolled out.

We also need links with the children's disability network teams, CDNTs, in community and primary care. That is not happening. I heard an HSE official comment that the relevant Departments do not talk to each other. They should be talking to each other. There should be a child-centred approach. The new SET allocation model excludes consideration of complex needs. I was told by a person in the NCSE that the reason for this is the lack of input from the CDNTs. Schools are saying they have the information but there is no way of inputting it. Could the primary online database, POD, system not be used to input that information? The review process that is in place seems to be there to discourage applications. It is too bureaucratic and involves too much red tape. Out of 360 schools who applied for review last year or the year before, only 60 were granted a review and only 39 had their hours increased. If schools are not happy with their SET hours, going through the review process is off-putting. Many of them do not even consider doing it.

There still are insufficient places in the summer programme and insufficient numbers of schools offering it. Will the Minister of State comment on claim by an Irish National Teachers Organisation, INTO, representative at an event last week that the capitation grant for the summer provision has been cut? If that is the case, why is it happening? An article in the Irish Independent yesterday reported that parents are paying top-up cash to teachers to have their child included in the summer provision. That is a disgrace. If there were sufficient places, it would not be happening.