Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have been contacted by parents of children attending Scoil Mhuire in Wexford who are shocked and saddened by the decision to cut the school's allocation of special needs assistants by 2.5 full-time positions, which follows a cut of six SNAs a couple of years ago. This is the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the ASD unit in Scoil Mhuire. At that time, the Department agreed to provide one-to-one SNA support for each child enrolled with a diagnosis of autism. The ASD unit at Scoil Mhuire became the most successful unit of its kind in the country and one of the most successful in Europe. It succeeded in integrating 57% of its pupils into full-time mainstream classes in a period when the national average was 19%.

In 2011, the National Council for Special Education, following a review of the allocation of special needs assistants to the unit, axed six SNA positions, citing as the reason that pupils were presenting with diminished care needs. The parents of the children in the unit did not agree with the NCSE's assessment but were denied a right of appeal. Two years later, and for the first time since the unit was opened, while some children are partially integrated into mainstream classes, not one child will move from the ASD unit into a mainstream class this September. Effectively, therefore, full-time integration has declined from 57% to 0% in two years.

Parents have nothing but praise for staff in Scoil Mhuire who have done everything possible to make the system work. The challenges facing them, however, are unbearable. Children who are partially integrated may not be in a position to continue with partial integration because the latest cut of 2.5 SNAs will make it impossible for the few remaining special needs assistants to leave the ASD unit to support the children in question. The ASD unit was attached to Scoil Mhuire for the specific purpose of enabling children with autism to enter mainstream classes. Its sole purpose has been all but removed. Denying a child access to an education is one of the forms of abuse specified in the Government's Children First guidelines. The absence of SNA support will mean that education will no longer be available for some children. It would be hard to make this up.

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