Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

Perhaps I have misunderstood the Minister — I thought she was referring to 1988. The point we are making on this side of the House is that not much has been done quickly.

Research has shown that early intervention can make a huge difference to the lives of children with special educational needs. The final outcome of intervention can vary with the level of intellectual disability. Sometimes I feel that the small gain from the intellectual input given to the children is somehow being held against them. We put in a great deal of resources and sometimes we feel that we might not get that much out of it from an educational point of view. That is wrong.

Having dealt with those children, especially as patients, I have seen the great difference it can make not only to their lives, but to those of their parents when any input at all is provided or any investment is made. Sometimes, when they do not have any speech, it gets very frustrating for them. They find it very hard to cope with their own normal, day-to-day routine, with their siblings and with their parents. It can also be extremely frustrating for their parents if they have a young child who finds it extremely difficult to communicate with them. Therefore, although we may look back on the time and resources spent on a child and question its worth, it is always a good thing. It makes a dramatic difference to their quality of life. I speak of children of extremely limited intellectual ability. It is not so much an education but giving them a chance to communicate with other family members and improving their quality of life. It is a very important social issue and it is a shame we have waited so long to see this level of effort being put into such children, who have no one to stand up for them. For many years, their parents have been banging their heads against the wall trying to get even the very limited resources available.

The Minister mentioned much about what is happening with investment and so on, but the practical reality for many years was that such children were grossly neglected and had very little done for them. That made their parents very angry and it may have made the public feel that we were a little callous and uncaring in this House because we left if for so long before making that investment in those who most needed it in the intellectual disability sector. The proper provision of resources can alter other children's lives completely. They are still intellectually below the average of those in this House, but they can also benefit greatly from any help given to them. I speak of such matters as dyslexia, which covers a wide range of effects on sufferers. Some find any sort of word recognition extremely difficult, while it might not affect the lives of others at all. There are probably at least seven or eight of us in this House who have some form of dyslexia but have got away with it in our lives since most people simply think that our spelling is poor, or diabolical. However, it does not seem to stop us from getting on in life.

Some people can be held back even by something such as dyslexia and that is why we must identify those children very early and not assume that a social or family cause or some other form of social dysfunction is responsible for their educational attainment being low. We must pick those children up very quickly and that is why this legislation and early assessment are so important. When such children are identified, they must immediately be given the resources they need to help them get on in life. No matter what we have done so far, we have not really got into this problem in a satisfactory manner for the sake of such children.

Another sub-category of children are those with attention deficit disorder. Once again, some of them are intellectually below average. They need a great deal of resources and help since they are also very disruptive and find it very hard to concentrate or even sit still in class. In some cases, they have also been pushed to one side and forgotten about over the years. Medication has improved dramatically in recent years and it can help mainstream such children. Great resources are needed and the investment is well worth it if such children can get on, move into their teenage years, get a secondary education and make their lives worthwhile instead of being discarded. As Deputy Costello pointed out, in some cases they do nothing other than fill our prisons in later years.

In some respects it is a little disappointing that we have waited so long for this Bill. The country has been doing very well for several years. Everyone on the other side of the House is at pains to tell us how the economy has been booming since 1997. I am glad they got that one right, but we have waited until now to start doing something. A great deal of potential has been lost in a generation of children over the past ten years. We could have done something about them had we been a little more understanding.

I give credit regarding resource assistants in schools. I saw that change before my involvement in politics. The Government gave help to parents to try to mainstream such children. For years they were denied any form of education or pushed off to its fringes. The first thing the Government did properly was provide resource assistants. However, there is no point doing so and sitting children down in classrooms if one does not have special needs teachers there too to give them an education. When one sees what is happening with children getting 12 or 22 minutes or an hour each week, one misses the point if one fails to see that it constitutes not teaching but going through the motions. If we have corrected one aspect in giving them resource assistants to keep them occupied in the classroom, why can we not also give them the teachers to provide them with a proper education?

The way in which this Bill — I believe it is not even in the legislation — has given principals responsibility could be negative. It is a little like asking a doctor to decide which patients should live and which should die. One is forcing the principal to face King Solomon on this issue; he or she must decide which children get what within the school. That is too big an issue and I am sure the Minister is well aware from her previous background that it is also a very emotional question for the parents involved. We may actually be doing damage to the role of a school principal by asking him or her to make such decisions about who gets what. The role of a school principal is very much about nurturing education, having a good relationship with parents and having no sense of confrontation in the school on issues of education. Disciplinary issues are a different matter.

In this instance, we are pushing an unsuitable role on a school principal and the Department should revisit the issue. Someone else should make the decision. It would not happen anywhere else that we would ask someone with such a sensitive role regarding children, and especially the children in question, to take on an even more sensitive one. I am surprised the proposal got through the Department of Education and Science and that principals are being put in such a position. I would have expected that not to occur and that the Department would have recognised the important separation of roles required.

From a medical point of view, assessment is also very important since it can sometimes expose a medical condition with other implications for the child. Sometimes the child's medical condition may indicate what can be done for him or her. That could help in the assessment process. Again, it is best that it comes early so that we know exactly what the child can attain in the future. If the child looks like he or she will not attain much, at least the parents should know early what he or she can achieve and not feel that the denial of early intervention made their child the way he or she is. That is why we should place such great emphasis on intervention as soon as possible. Sometimes, medical intervention may be needed for some other reason, which is more evidence of the importance of early intervention.

Social issues have been touched on by other speakers. They have a very important role, although perhaps they are connected with another section of the Department. Social deprivation and the level of educational attainment by other members of a household have a great effect on what a child can achieve. Sometimes we find that such social aspects are allowed to impinge on a parent pushing for an assessment for his or her child, perhaps seeing that he or she has a disability. It is another role and something that should be left to a separate person. Perhaps that person should take over the role of the principal in dividing resources, something I disagree with completely. On a positive note, I have seen where it can work very well. In a local national school, they have a special needs classroom, assistants and a teacher.

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