Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I support this motion. It is probably one of the most important issues we have discussed so far this session. Nobody knows better than the Minister about the importance of timely intervention for vulnerable children. The educational assessment and the education plan which follows it is the gateway to the services a child needs. If the gateway is closed owing to the absence of an assessment, no resources in terms of the help a child needs are released, even if they are in place.

This has implications for every child in the class, not just the one experiencing difficulties. If there is a disruptive, unhappy, underachieving, undiagnosed child, that causes enormous problems, of necessity. It absorbs the teacher's attentions and energies and affects every single child in the class so that they are all disadvantaged, in effect. The reality is that in most classrooms today it is not just one child but one in every five children who experience some learning difficulties. The problem may be very minor. It could be slight autism, a mild hearing problem, dyslexia or whatever. In many cases the child can be saved through timely intervention and can go on to lead a perfectly normal, happy life, availing of all the educational opportunities that exist towards helping him or her to achieve full potential.

However, if the safety net is not there, a child's future will be different, characterised by a series of lost opportunities throughout his or her life. It is not just a failure to move on and achieve gainful employment, but rather the inability to grow emotionally, and form meaningful and supportive relationships towards developing a sense of self-esteem. All the literature and research indicates that what happens to such children can lead to depression, even suicide, or to a cycle of crime that ends in prison. At best it leads to a lifetime of underachievement and lost potential. I do not believe anything is sadder than that. We can spend money on nothing better if we are to avert that fate for children.

We know the value of early intervention in averting disaster. The introduction of NEPS was an acknowledgement of that. It begs the question why we are not getting these assessments and the accompanying follow-through. The only explanation for the lack of assessment and the consequent lack of an education plan is the rationing of the scarce therapeutic resources that are available. If the need for intervention is not recognised, the enormous gap in resources in effecting the plan that should follow is not identified. The gateway is being slammed in the face of children at that crucial time in their lives. There is no excuse for not having the type of personnel called for, the language and occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists etc. There is no explanation, but the need was well signalled.

When NEPS was introduced this was an acknowledgement of the need for it. The Disability Act, which clearly guaranteed an assessment of every child, of necessity immediately demanded a vast increase in the supply of high calibre trained therapists. If that was not enough, there was the growing population. We know there will be 58,000 children in the primary school system within a few years. How will they get the additional assessments if we are training eight educational psychologists a year through the MA course?

The greatest irony and the biggest tragedy in this is the impact of the Disability Act. This long-awaited legislation, in which so many people had placed their hopes, gives a statutory right of assessment to a child with a disability, but that applies only to children up to age five. The impact of this is that all the new therapeutic resources which are becoming available to do assessments, including educational psychologists, are being directed to this age group. That is absolutely essential and very welcome, but it was never intended to replace the resources allocated to children in school. Children up to five have the right to an assessment or perhaps can avail of services within the community, but once they go to school they lose it.

It is an absolute outrage that this is what is happening as a result of the introduction of the Disability Act. It is a part of the same problem because not enough educational psychologists or therapists are being trained. It is absolutely essential that this matter is addressed urgently and there is no excuse for not dealing with it.

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