Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. He is correct in saying that autism-related services are a good-news story. In my own county at primary level, Scoil Íosagáin in Buncrana and Woodland national school in Letterkenny provide excellent autism-related services. Last September saw the opening of two more special classes with autism-related services in St. Patrick's national school in Lurgybrack and also an early intervention class in the Little Angels school in Letterkenny. If there is one wider point to be made it is that we should look at the provision of autism services as a model of best practice that could be applied to other areas of disability where there are service deficits. Autism service provision should be used as a bar to which we should aspire to raise other services for children with disabilities.

While there is a positivity around parental choice and whether parents want to opt for mainstream or special classes, there is a geographical consideration at play in this regard and I know Deputy McConalogue will be aware of this. In Inishowen many secondary school children with autism have to travel for over an hour to get to school and while the transport is provided by the Department, the distances involved are proving to be a difficulty for some pupils.

In Buncrana there is a drive, through the local council and the VEC, to develop a new secondary school campus located in Buncrana itself. I ask that the Department work closely with the VEC on this. Myself and my Oireachtas colleagues from the county will be meeting the VEC on Monday next to get an update on that project. It is in band 1.2 and, as the Minister of State will be aware, that band refers to the provision of special accommodation for children with special needs such as autism, speech and language impairment, severe and profound intellectual impairment and so forth. The focus, from the Department's point of view, should be on how to facilitate secondary school children from Inishowen and whether it would be possible to provide services on this new campus, even though the Crana College itself is available for such children.

Perhaps in future there should be proper consultation with parents dealing with a wide range of disabilities and not just autism.

There is an ongoing conversation about Crana College so perhaps we should be consulting at a very early stage with parents who have children with mild or more severe disabilities at both primary and secondary level within Inishowen to see how we can build a service provision on the campus to cater for many children in that part of the world.

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