Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"recognising that:

major improvements have been made in special education in recent years, underpinned by a doubling of investment since 2004 to €900 million this year and the provision of approximately 19,000 teachers and SNAs to work solely with children with special needs;

the number of special classes for children with autism has increased by 40% in the past year alone, with 277 classes now in place in mainstream and special schools around the country;

applied behavioural analysis is one of the interventions used in such classes, along with others that focus on the development of children's speech and communication skills;

the taskforce on autism recommended that a range of resources and approaches be made available to meet the unique needs of each student with an autistic spectrum disorder in all school settings;

the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 is being implemented on the phased basis provided for in the legislation so that teachers and schools will be well-prepared for the major developments that it encompasses;

the first Special Education Appeals Board has already been appointed in advance of the full implementation of the Act; and

improved co-ordination between the education and health sectors has been prioritised, with the appointment of a Minister of State with that specific responsibility and the establishment of a cross-sectoral team to co-ordinate the implementation of Part 2 of the Disability Act 2005 and the relevant sections of the EPSEN Act 2004;

appreciates that in any area of historic under-provision it takes time to bring services up to the optimum level and supports the Government's determination to:

improve access to assessments for children with special needs, as per the commitments in the Disability Act 2005 and the programme for Government;

expand preschool provision around the country to ensure early intervention;

continue to increase the number of special classes for children with autism;

continue to provide schools with the necessary supports so that each child with special needs can have an education that is tailored to their unique individual needs and abilities, with provision for a range of interventions — including PECS, ABA and TEACCH — for children with autism;

deliver on the commitment in the programme for Government to "commit to long-term funding for the 12 centres that are currently in the ABA pilot scheme subject to agreement with the Department of Education and Science on standards that will enable the Department to support them as primary schools for children with autism";

continue the work of putting in place the necessary processes to enable the full implementation of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 by October 2010 as set out in the legislation;

develop special schools as centres of excellence and outreach facilities and allow for dual enrolment so that children can attend both a special school and a mainstream school as appropriate;

continue to improve second level provision for children with special needs;

improve access to speech and language and occupational therapy; and

provide parents, through the Special Education Appeals Board, with a right of recourse to an independent appeals process."

I wish to share time with the Minister of State, Deputy Devins.

I am genuinely glad of the opportunity to clearly outline my commitment and that of the Government to all children in this country, and particularly children with special educational needs. I, too, am particularly conscious of the commitment and dedication of parents of children with special needs and the efforts and many personal sacrifices they make to ensuring that their children get the best advantage and reach their full potential. That is the case for parents all over the country.

It is also our commitment to ensure that we support those parents and children, recognising that all children are different and children with autism are different. They all have a range of needs and our responsibility is to ensure that, within the education system and the health service, we are meeting all of those needs and providing locally-based services to enable as many of those children as possible attend schools in their local areas with their siblings, to be part of their local communities and to get the educational support that they need. That has been the commitment of Government in recent years and that has been my personal commitment since I became Minister for Education and Science.

The record in this area is one of under-provision. There is a poor record for many years in providing for children with special needs and we are playing catch-up. We have driven a complete transformation in educational policy in the past ten years and we have focussed specifically on children with special educational needs.

It is not so long ago — perhaps 20 years, as has been mentioned already — that people did not recognise this area. Ten years ago, there was no automatic entitlement to either teaching or care supports. Provision for children with special needs in mainstream schools was virtually non-existent. Not all schools had resource or learning support teachers. There were only 252 special needs assistants in total, with virtually all of these employed in special schools. If a child had any significant educational or care need, parents had no choice but to enrol him or her in special schools, where the child had access to excellent teachers and care staff but little opportunity to mix with other children from the community. There were only eight special classes for children with autism in the entire country. At that time, children with special needs had few choices in education.

Over the past ten years, successive Ministers have delivered significant improvements in services for children with special needs. When I became Minister for Education and Science in 2004, I acknowledged that while significant improvements had already been made, the historical reality of under-provision in this area meant that we were still playing catch-up and I made this my number one priority.

Ten years ago, my colleague, the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Micheál Martin, put in place the policy of "automatic response". For the first time, a child with a special educational need had the right to additional teaching or care supports. Since then, the services available to children with special needs have improved dramatically. The right of each child to the maximum appropriate level of inclusion in line with his or her abilities has been recognised and supported in legislation and in practice. The number of SNAs has increased from less than 300 to almost 10,000 and the number of teachers working solely with children with special needs in the schools has increased significantly to over 9,000 today, that is, 19,000 people whose sole job is to work with children with special educational needs. Continued support for special schools has helped them to provide excellent services for children with more complex special needs. Over the past decade, successive Ministers have made improvements for children with special educational needs a priority.

The improvements over the past three and a half years have been significant. Investment in special education has almost doubled, to over €900 million this year. Almost 6,000 additional special education staff have been put in place — 4,000 special needs assistants and 2,000 teachers. The application process for extra supports has been completely transformed with the move from an entirely centralised system with all applications processed by the Department to a more child and family-friendly process with 82 local special needs organisers working with parents and teachers. All primary schools have been allocated resource teaching hours based on their enrolment figures to support children with high incidence special needs and learning difficulties, such as dyslexia. This means that the majority of primary school pupils with special needs no longer require assessments in order to get extra support. The level of training available to teachers has been significantly improved through a major expansion of the special education support service, which was set up in 2003. Last year, the service was in contact with over 15,000 teachers. Day-to-day funding for special classes has been significantly improved and has been almost doubled for classes for children under 12 with a physical disability.

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