Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I wish to raise the problem that seems to have existed for some time with the quantity and capacity of production from the NBPC, the National Braille Production Centre, in Cabra. A constituent has notified me of a difficulty. Her son who has a sight problem has not been provided with the books he requires. She has had a kind of Kafkaesque dialogue with a State-aided organisation in which trying to get information is like trying to get blood from a stone. From the reply to a parliamentary question I tabled, I understand that 146 clients are waiting to have Braille books delivered. Of those, 90 clients will have their books provided before Christmas. When I sent this information back to my constituent I got the following response:

We have been trying to get answers from the NBPC and have failed and have considered the FOI Act. Can you advise if the FOI Act would be a channel we could use to get information from the NBPC? We have also been in touch with the Equality Authority who have expressed an interest in our case. . . . . As you can see from the response to your question the number of outstanding Braille books is very high. These students are obviously waiting for their books since September which is outrageous. The NBPC kept telling us that we were an isolated case. [My son] received another 12 pages of one of his maths books last week (the order having been placed in early July), again some of the contents arriving too late for him to benefit from. He is still waiting for the remaining chapters which we have been told won't arrive now until next year. In relation to the orders outstanding for the other students I wonder how long ago they were placed.

In a separate note she communicated to me as follows:

[A] Visiting Teacher recently gave our family a demonstration in Braille production. Within minutes even my 13 year old was able to translate text to Braille on the PC and send it to an electronic Braille embosser, ready for [my son] to read. The process is so simple and straightforward that I cannot understand why the NBPC cannot produce enough books for so few students, and on time.

This is no reflection on the Minister who is present but I am sorry the Minister with direct knowledge of the area or the Minister of State is not here to reply to this matter. What is the problem and why has it taken so long for books to be produced? Partially sighted and blind students have enough disabilities to contend with in the context of their education. This should not be compounded by what seems to me to be inexplicable inefficiency from this body. I have no reason to doubt that modern technology linking computers to an embossing machine could produce these kinds of documents very quickly. People who are blind or seriously disadvantaged by a sight disability cannot get the books they require on order, even though the knowledge and data of their existence is well established.

Perhaps the Minister who is here on behalf of the Minister for Education and Science has an answer. Citizens of this State should not be treated by a publicly-funded organisation as if they were some kind of persons to whom information could not be given and should not be forced to resort to their public representatives asking questions on their behalf. If this Republic is to celebrate any kind of maturity, then surely we should treat citizens with respect and they should be able to get this information themselves.

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