John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted I attended the debate from the beginning. My contribution reflects my experience working as a resource teacher for 14 years before becoming a Deputy. I speak with expertise rather than scratching the surface, which is often what happens when debates take place here and people do not know much about the issue but know that it is sensationalist to say something. I chaired a meeting on behalf of the NCSE in May and I invited 166 Members of the House and all Senators to hear about the report on special education in Ireland and the advice the NCSE gave to the Department of Education and Skills on how best to serve the needs of young people with special educational needs in our education system. Some ten Members attended and it is hypocritical to hear comments and to see press releases from Opposition Members. I do not include Deputy Charlie McConalogue because he attended the briefing and I appreciate that he took the time to do so. I heard speakers who did not cross the door of the briefing contribute to this debate. At the meeting, we had the chance to have a mature discussion on how best to serve people with special educational needs in Ireland and on the best way to supply service delivery in light of the restrictions on the amount of money available.

The Minister has already said there is a commitment to keep the amount of money, €1.3 billion, for special educational needs, which says something about the commitment of the Labour Party, in coalition with Fine Gael, to protect people with special educational needs. Talking about special needs assistants and resource teacher hours is not what it is really about. It is about much more than that and how best to serve the young people who come through the doors of our schools to ensure their educational needs are met appropriately in order that they have the best chance in life. That may be a child in a school in Ballymun or in Letterkenny but if the child has a genuine learning need, it must be assessed and appropriately met by the skills required to give the child the best possible chance in life.

The current model of providing half the resources through a general allocation model and the other half through educational psychological assessments is not the way to provide resources so that every child in the country reaches its full potential. Ballymun lost its only special needs assistant, SNA, the other day and I am disappointed about it. If a teacher recognises a child in Ballymun has a learning difficulty, given the limited resources the State must work within, the child may not get the appropriate psychological assessment to have his or her needs assessed. Meanwhile, other schools are under the same constraints and someone else may be in a position to pay for an educational psychological assessment. If so, the child is assessed and the child's needs get attention and the resource hours follow. That is great for the individual but not every parent in the country can pay for an educational psychological assessment.

At the briefing, the NCSE recommended a way forward to meet the needs of every child with special educational needs in the country in an equitable and accessible manner, by removing some families' purchasing power. It recommended a move towards a more creative, innovative and professional way to ensure every child with special educational needs is assessed appropriately. I commend what the NCSE has recommended, which involves profiling schools. Schools with a larger proportion of disadvantage, such as being oversubscribed in respect of Travellers or being located in a disadvantaged area, will be assessed on the basis of the need in the community the school is located in. Even though some of the schools in my area are DEIS schools, they have fewer resources than schools in other areas. That is a problem. One of the recommendations in the NCSE report is to change the model. We are giving out about the model, which is broken.

Anybody who attended that meeting and who genuinely and wholeheartedly cared about our special educational needs children in schools would know this is the way forward. It is a much more accessible, appropriate and equitable way of dealing with the limited resources we have.

To conclude, it is a bit rich to come to the House and talk about cuts in this, that and the other. What everybody here really wants is for the individual children, both those we know and do not know, who go to our schools to reach their full potential. The model we use, which has been in place for a very long time, does not use the money and limited resources we have to do that best. The model that is being proposed will be worked on by the advisory group. There are two parents in that group, so the advice of parents will be heard. I welcome that decision. This will hopefully provide for a better model to ensure that everybody who has a learning need will have that need met to ensure they have the best chances in life.

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