Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

I welcome the Private Members' motion because it provides an opportunity to challenge the Government not to utter more platitudes on special educational needs or point to well-meaning but unimplemented legislation. It must not be allowed to continue to mirror unmet needs with insufficient resources, the reality facing parents of children with special educational needs.

During the Second Stage debate on the Disability Bill, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, took offence at my argument that, despite the passage of the Education for Persons with Disabilities Act, the reality is that many people's educational needs are not being met. She argued that the Bill had not been long in operation, which is true. However, there appears to be no sense that the potential offered by new legislation will be matched by sufficient resources in the near future.

I acknowledge that the Minister, in one of her first tests, responded correctly in tackling the logjam in the provision of special needs assistants. Unfortunately, the measures she took offered only a short-term solution. I still do not know how she will avoid a repetition of the delays this year.

Department officials take an almost Dickensian approach to assessing whether young people need a special needs assistant. Decisions are not taken following a meeting with a child or an inspection of the environment in which he or she lives but on the basis of reports frequently written by experts in the field who represent private and voluntary organisations. The Department often chooses either to ignore or contradict these reports, which is no way to make decisions on matters of this kind. A type of lottery system operates with regard to determining, even at the most basic level, whether people receive State resources to meet their educational needs.

While early intervention at pre-school level and special intervention at primary and secondary levels is necessary, it must also be recognised that successive Governments have erected barriers to prevent people with disabilities or special educational needs having their needs met.

The constituency I represent has been a fulcrum of the debate on special needs education. Kathy Sinnott, whose son Jamie was the focus of the Sinnott case, lives in the constituency. An even more important case which preceded the Sinnott case was the O'Donoghue case taken by Marie O'Donoghue on behalf of her son, Paul. That bugbear had to be dealt with by a previous Government. These two cases represented a judicial approach to analysing and achieving the right of children to special needs education, which the political system continues to fail to deliver.

It is unfortunate that the House continues to have debates of this type. The best legal or judicial interpretation of the rights of children with disabilities was provided in the O'Donoghue case by the Ceann Comhairle's namesake, the late High Court judge, Mr. Justice Rory O'Hanlon, who gave a human judgment on what the State should do but fails to do. Among the inconsistencies and contradictions in the State's approach is the manner in which programmes are funded. The CABAS schools to which other Deputies referred continue to be funded in pilot schemes on a roll-over basis.

The Government approach demonstrates a lack of long-term thinking and generosity as regards how long-term needs should be met. Perhaps the problem lies in a political system in which short-term decisions are made to get us over a hump, whether the most recent crisis or the next election. Such an approach does not meet the needs of young people with special educational needs. Unfortunately, I have no confidence that the Government will make the philosophical change necessary to shift its behaviour sufficiently to deliver the resources required.

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