John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy should sit and listen. My point is that the Government introduced and delivered on NEPS. It is never the case that programmes are introduced which do not encounter hitches and glitches. We devised and introduced NEPS.

The motion refers specifically to NEPS and assessment. There is no point carrying out assessments if resources are not delivered simultaneously in respect of special needs assistants, SNAs, and school supports. Last week, the Minister for Education and Science replied to parliamentary questions from Deputy Quinn in respect of average class sizes and pupil-teacher ratios. I do not know whether the Deputy was trying to play dumb but he made no attempt to recognise that there is a difference between the two. While average class sizes may not have been reduced in the way people may have wished, the primary reason for this was that the pupil-teacher ratio has fallen. The latter came about because we appointed a significant number of additional resource teachers and SNAs. During the Question Time to which I refer, Opposition Members stated that the latter do not count or are not significant. Now they are suddenly most significant.

If those children who are in mainstream education and who have special needs are not attended to by SNAs and resource teachers, it has an impact on their education and that of their classmates. When we were in school, such resources were not available. Members can refer to individuals with whom they went to school who should have had but who did not have that level of support available to them. It is only during the past eight to ten years that Fianna Fáil-led Governments have delivered in that regard.

The motion tabled by Deputy Brian Hayes and Fine Gael is mean-spirited because it refers only to assessment and not to the delivery of resources. There are now 6,000 primary school teachers working daily with children who have special educational needs. In 1998 less than a quarter of that number were employed in the system. At post-primary level, almost 2,500 teachers work with these children. More importantly, in 1998 there were only 300 SNAs in employment. Now there are over 8,800. The motion is, as already stated, mean-spirited and fails to recognise the very significant improvements that have been made in the delivery of services. It primarily concentrates on——

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