Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

Would the Minister agree that the critical issue is that parents must trust the SENO and the National Council for Special Education? The difficulty facing many parents who have been recently through the process is that there is a lack of trust, transparency and consistency. There seems to be a lack of consistency, not only locally in Ireland but internationally. The value for money review highlights that fact.

The value for money report, which is part of the focus on SNAs, stated that in focus groups other professionals referred to pressure and reported a lack of overall control of the situation or their inability to influence decisions relating to the needs of children. Even for those who are involved in the process, there seems to be a problem in that regard. Parents cannot understand that one child will get an assessment for 15 minutes and for other children there does not seem to be that on-site assessment. That is part of the difficulty.

I understand there are problems of funding etc. but the problem facing parents is that there is no consistency. There is any number of examples. Where there is equipment worth €2,500 to help a child see the teacher and the SNA is being taken away, for example, how does the child follow the teacher around the room?

See this speech in context