Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"commends the Government for the significant additional resources made available for the education of pupils with special educational needs; and welcomes the legislative and administrative measures being taken by the Government to improve the framework within which services are delivered to pupils with special educational needs, their parents and schools."

As this is my first major contribution to the House as Minister for Education and Science, I want to say that I look forward to working with the Opposition spokespersons whom I know have made a very valuable contribution to consideration in the House of legislation in the education area over the past few years.

I am glad the subject matter of this first presentation is the important one of special education, which is an issue of extreme sensitivity and, fortunately, one on which we have made tremendous progress in the past six years after many years of neglect. This is a good opportunity for me not only to put on the record of the House what has happened but also my commitment to advancing the provision of educational services to people with special educational needs during my tenure as Minister for Education and Science.

Listening to the Deputies, I know we can have a very constructive debate because l believe we share a common cause on this issue. We want to ensure the services are better for all the people who need them. Every child deserves the opportunity to reach his or her potential and it is my aim, as Minister for Education and Science, to create the environment where that can be achieved.

In the case of a child with special needs, a particular targeted response is needed to enable that child develop his or her abilities, enhance his or her educational level and prepare him or her for participation in society. Though I may be happy to record achievement, I am not complacent. I know that while we have achieved much we are not at the level we want to be, and I look forward to the challenge of making further improvements in the provision of educational services for people with special needs.

The record of the State over decades in providing for children with special needs has been poor. That is why I am glad advances have been made in the past six years. I acknowledge in particular the immense efforts the parents of those children have made for them. They not only had to battle to seek services but in many cases provided those service at a cost to themselves and their families. It is because of that, unlike what Deputy Boyle said, I chose last week not to pursue the parents for costs in a case the Department of Education and Science won. I did not want to put those parents through any further pressure than they had been through already. That was based on a respect and a recognition that parents often had to go to the courts. The Deputy will be well aware, therefore, that comments of mine were not in any way directed at the parents of children with special needs.

Without doubt we are now playing catch-up. In any area of historical underprovision it takes time to improve services to an appropriate level. Nevertheless, we must accelerate our efforts so as to ensure that people with special educational needs and their parents are provided with appropriate services in a timely, efficient and customer-friendly manner. I accept what has been said by Deputies in regard to that. We are not there yet, and I will not pretend we are. While I will record achievement, I will also acknowledge that services provided for the education of people with special educational needs, including services provided by my Department, are not as developed as we would like. Though this might be the case, action is in train to make the necessary improvements.

Speakers referred to resources. I remind the House of the progress made in the allocation of resources and the increase in staff in this area in the past six years. There are now more than 2,600 resource teachers, up from 104 in 1998; there are 1,500 learning support teachers; there are more than 1,000 teachers in special schools; and there are more than 600 teachers in special classes. An interesting statistic is that there are 5,000 special needs assistants in our schools. There were 300 such special needs assistants only six years ago. More than €30 million is being spent on school transport for special needs students and more than €3 million goes on specialised equipment and materials, which is up from €800,000 in 1998.

The scale of resource allocation I have outlined has facilitated the provision of education for children with special needs in mainly mainstream national schools. However, education for children with special educational needs is provided in a variety of settings. In addition to supported provision in mainstream classes, placement may also be made in special classes and units and in special schools. Pending such a placement, arrangements have been made for tuition to be delivered in the child's home.

Where appropriate for the individual child, integrated provision with necessary supports is the desired choice of most parents. For children for whom mainstream provision is not appropriate, placement may be made in one of the 108 special schools and the 654 special classes and units located throughout the country.

To appreciate the scale of improvement in the provision of resources to primary schools for special needs, it is worth reflecting on the fact that, at approximately 10,700, the number of adults providing services for children with special educational needs in primary schools today is more than half the 21,100 teachers in the system in 1998. The debate, therefore, cannot question the Government's commitment to providing resources for special educational needs, but I accept there are individual cases where schools are awaiting decisions on applications for additional resources, and I have taken measures to ensure that process is speeded up. Indeed, this whole process will shortly undergo major transformation as the National Council for Special Education commences operation on the ground throughout the country.

In 1998 the Government took a decision which has transformed the level of provision for pupils with special educational needs. That decision meant that pupils with special educational needs would be entitled to an automatic response to meet those needs. In other words, the allocation of resources to meet those needs no longer depended, as it did in the past, on the limited resources that were available to meet those needs. Instead, the response was based on the nature of the disability involved and once the required supporting professional assessments were made available the resources were automatically allocated. It was this decision that gave rise to the enormous expansion in resourcing levels to which I have referred.

While the Government decision of October 1998 authorised the allocation of significant resources, it posed significant challenges to the administration in processing the significant level of applications which were made in response to the Government commitment. I pay tribute to the staff of my Department's special education section, the inspectorate and the national educational psychological service for the efforts they have made to service the demands which were exacerbated by the lack of investment in the past. It has to be acknowledged, however, that despite their efforts, service delivery in this area has not always been adequate to provide the level of service that pupils with special educational needs, their parents, their schools and teachers require and deserve. The Department recognised that it was neither properly resourced nor structured to deliver these services.

Arising from the report of an internal planning group, which was endorsed by the Cromien report on the Department of Education and Science and its operations, the Government decided to establish the National Council for Special Education to co-ordinate the provision of service to children with special educational needs. The council was appointed by my predecessor, Deputy Noel Dempsey, last December and it has recruited 70 special educational needs organisers. These people will be a focal point of contact for schools and parents. They will process individual applications for resources for special educational needs. These special educational needs organisers, SENOs as they are now being called, will commence work on the ground over the next month or so. I am confident this new resource will provide a step change in the delivery of special education services.

Arising out of its ongoing review of the resource allocation process, it was clear that the automatic response was operating in a manner that was far from automatic. The reality was that every single application had to be accompanied by a psychological or clinical assessment and had to be processed individually. The requirements of the process diverted school principals and psychologists from other work and delayed the processing of applications. The process was both cumbersome and time-consuming.

In light of the reality that pupils in the high incidence disability categories of mild and borderline mild general learning disability and dyslexia are distributed throughout the education system, my Department, in consultation with educational interests, has developed a weighted model of teacher allocation for these disability categories. The weighted allocation, which also includes an allocation for pupils requiring learning support, is designed to put in place in primary schools a permanent resource to cater for the pupils in these categories.

The allocations are based on pupil numbers and take account of the differing needs of the most disadvantaged schools and the evidence that boys have greater difficulties than girls in this regard. Some people have questioned this but looking back at the numbers of applications made for extra resources, the number of applications for boys far outweighed those for girls.

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