Cecilia Keaveney (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

Chuala méóráid an Aire aréir agus bhí sí go maith. Dúirt sí go bhfuil obair déanta agus go bhfuil a lán oibre le déanamh freisin. Tá sí, maraon leis an Roinn, na tuismitheoirí agus daltaí scoile, ag obair maidin agus oíche na rudaí eile a chríochnú. Tús maith leath na hoibre agus go n-éirí an bóthar léi.

It is important to keep education to the fore and I welcome this opportunity to speak on it. I come from a background of music education. As chair of the arts committee, apart from anything else, I always make the case that music education should be at the core of a child's development. It is beyond question that a child's ability in terms of co-ordination, rhythmic development, language development, ability to deal with people, development of confidence and many aspects of an unborn child's engagement with life outside the womb and following birth can be multiplied by access to and interaction with music. If I were to achieve one objective this evening, it would be to encourage the Department of Education and Science to re-examine the international proof in this area, including the two reports our committee prepared, that point to the undoubted need for the role of the arts in education to become more central.

I wish to pick up on the issue of the role of music therapy and the fact that we need to expand not only on that and the number of locations where it can occur but that when people search for what they consider alternative but which I consider central, funding is made available for that therapy to be developed. I say that in the context of supporting what takes place in this area.

When I was elected to this House in 1996 I was in Opposition. I battled to ensure a classroom assistant in a class for moderately handicapped children in Scoil Íosagáin was not re-assigned to a class for profoundly mentally handicapped, which was what was proposed. I begged for a second assistant to be appointed to ensure that those children would have the facility of a classroom assistant. I remember that well because it was the subject of an Adjournment debate and the then Minister of State, Deputy Allen, was unfortunately given a response concerning the wrong school and it was extremely embarrassing for him and for me.

Scoil Íosagáin is only one such school but is a good example of one in that period where the mainstreaming of special needs at all levels has taken place and is supported. It has 28 special needs assistants, three full-time resource teachers, two full-time learning support teachers, a principal and 21 mainstream assistants and school staff, a class for severe profound general learning disability, two classes for moderate learning disability, one class for mild learning disability, three classes for autism and two classes for specific learning disability. While I could continue to list the supports it has, I am simply outlining the change that has occurred in that school in a relatively short number of years. However, what is a short number of years for people involved in legislation is a terribly long period for those involved in this area. The children that were entering school when I was elected are well on their way through the system by now. We must keep up the good work because for every parent, his or her child is the most important, not the child who will be there in 20 or 30 years time.

I welcome the fact that we are doing a lot and moving forward. It is frustrating for all of us who know the children and see the delay between an application for support and a recommendation for support on the other side, but the establishment of the NCSE will be a help in that. The Minister outlined her desire for co-ordination and unless there is co-ordination across the board, between Departments, service users, providers and funders, we will not get very far.

The new council offers local decision making so that people will be treated as individuals. There are also opportunities for collective work. Many of the children with dyslexia, dyspraxia and fragile X can be dealt with on a group basis and we should have the flexibility to bring in children and put the resources into schools, leaving them to decide how they are used. The schools know best what the needs are. I hope the slow decision making is a thing of the past.

I wish the Minister well and ask that music and art therapy become more central in education. We must keep up the good work because people are working hard to develop services for their children. It is happening all over the Inishowen peninsula, in Carn, Buncrana and Moville, where people are doing their bit to help and they deserve recognition.

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