Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

This is about ensuring that every child with autism, as of right, has access to the forms of education most appropriate to his or her individual needs. I have had help in my approach to this matter because my wife is a special needs teacher who teaches children with autism. When I make these points, it is from my exposure and personal awareness on a daily basis in a home where this is a hugely important issue to us as parents and to my wife as a teacher. It is about the ongoing failure of the State to meet these needs despite the commitments that have been made since the report of the task force on autism in 2001.

In 2005, we the Sinn Féin Deputies put forward a motion and used our Private Members' time to demand real action in support of children with special needs, including those with autism. The motion included the following points — I have picked a number of them and reiterate what is contained in them. While progress has been made in the area of special needs education, including the passage of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004, families still find it necessary to seek redress in the courts for the failure of the State to meet the needs of their children. The Government must allocate the resources required to meet the special needs and equal rights of all. We urge deployment of teachers to be based on the right of each individual pupil to have his or her special educational needs assessed and on the right of each pupil to the resources required to ensure that each can reach his or her full potential. The last point I have picked from the construction of that Private Members' motion is that we urged the full implementation of the recommendations of the Report on Educational Provision and Support for Persons with Autistic Spectrum Disorders, the report of the task force on autism in 2001.

That motion was debated here almost exactly three years ago. Yes, it is important that we readily acknowledge progress has been made, and I do, but thanks first and foremost — this is not begrudging on my part as a political representative because everyone present must recognise it — is due to the efforts of the parents of children with autism. This area, which has suffered historic neglect, is only being addressed slowly by the Government, from which reluctant action is being extracted. However, after three years we find that the State's provision is so limited and the Minister's approach, with respect, is so restrictive that parents are still going to court to vindicate the rights of their autistic children. I make no apology for using these phrases, but the Government has brought shame and disgrace on the State, on the entire jurisdiction, by fighting the Ó Cuanacháin family and other families all the way through the courts to deny their children the right to the education which their special needs require.

The stance of the Minister is contradictory as well as intransigent. Funding has been provided for 12 ABA schools. Most of these schools were established at the initiative of parents when there was virtually no support from the State for the education of children with special needs. However, now that the Department has made some progress and established more special classes, it wants to close the door on the development of further ABA schools. It is closing off this option for children who desperately need it. To justify this stance, the Minister and her Department are attempting to discredit the proven benefits of ABA. The Minister's defence of her refusal to fund these schools has been demolished by the co-author of the report of the task force on autism, Dr. Rita Honan of Trinity College. Dr. Honan points out that the task force placed an emphasis on the need for options for parents and a range of essential supports for children. Obviously, every child with autism does not require full-scale ABA education, but the option must be there for those who need it.

One of the most telling commentaries was written by Adrienne Murphy in The Irish Times on 1 February, the mother of a four year old boy with autism and a journalist. The Minister should consider very carefully what Adrienne Murphy wrote. She stated:

What the Department is failing to acknowledge is that autism is a spectrum disorder. Although many of the children on the mild "high-functioning" end of the spectrum do not require ABA, study after international study show that children on the moderate to severe end of the spectrum most definitely do need the intensive, scientifically-driven, evidence-based, individualised one-to-one intervention that ABA provides. Without it, their chances of leading anything like a normal life are severely diminished.

The Minister claims that the educational model provided in the Department's special classes is eclectic and appropriate for children with autism, but it is not appropriate for all children with autism. To return to Adrienne Murphy's article which further states:

The Department of Education has tried to get around this by saying that the eclectic model contains elements of ABA. For children on the severe end of autism, this is like offering someone falling through the sky a small portion of a parachute with which to try to land.

Let there be no confusion on this. The Minister's refusal to provide for ABA education is not about the needs of children. It is not about favouring one educational model over another. It is something much more crass, namely, money. The Minister and her Department have got it into their heads that providing ABA for all who need it will be far too costly and, therefore, square pegs must be forced into round holes. I remind the Minister what she stated when she replied to the debate on the Sinn Féin Private Members' motion on special needs education in 2005, to which I referred. She said:

In particular the Minister for Finance is obliged to have due regard to the State's duty to provide for an education appropriate to the needs of every child under the Constitution and the necessity to provide equity of treatment for all children.

That is absolutely right. However, the Government has clearly failed to meet that obligation and children and parents are suffering as a result.

My time has almost concluded and I want to try to beat the Acting Chairman, Deputy Charlie O'Connor, to it if I can. I urge the Minister to reconsider what has been described, and what I view as her intransigent position, to withdraw her amendment and to work with the parents of children with autism, their teachers and all concerned in the education and health services to provide these children with the care and education they so badly need and so clearly deserve.

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