Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

There has been some talk that the Minister of State, Deputy Sargent, wanted the opportunity to speak tonight or tomorrow. If he cannot get Government time to do so, we will allow him some of our time because I want to hear what he has to say. I know many Members opposite do not agree with their Minister on this and many other issues in education. They have told me that to my face. We need to hear their voices in this debate and their constituents want them to make a stand on this important issue of education provision.

There has been virtually no discussion on the impact of this decision on children in existing mainstream classes who will see bigger classes next year not just because of the abolition of special classes, but also because of the increase in the staffing schedule. The loss of a special class in a school will have a detrimental effect on all children in that school, a fundamental point that needs to be highlighted. I am predicting now that if this measure is introduced, children currently obtaining extra support in mainstream classes will have that support withdrawn from September. Despite what the Minister has said, he has made no commitments to the 119 affected schools about extra learning support for the next school year. In a great majority of existing mainstream classes there are already a high number of children with learning and emotional needs. Catering for the special class children for an extended period of the day will have a negative knock-on effect on the amount of time the teacher can spend with all the other children.

The Minister has stated that the children who move from a special to mainstream class will still have a special needs assistant when they move. How many of the 534 children currently have an SNA? The Minister seems to be unaware that the SNA only applies to children with special care needs and in any case SNAs are forbidden from getting involved in the learning needs of children. The Minister has also stated that the children can avail of resource support. Under Department of Education and Science circular SP ED 02/05 children with a mild general learning disability lost this entitlement to low incidence resource hours.

With the greatest degree of respect the Minister is out of his depth. Any Minister with the slightest understanding of special needs provision would have sent packing the official who came to his office with this proposal tucked under his or her arm. He is badly exposed in this as a Minister who neither listens nor understands. It is time he backed down in favour of the approach contained in our motion. It is time he started to listen to people at the coalface. It is time that he dumped the prepared scripts and dumped the attitude.

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