Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak. I have submitted this matter several times over about five weeks, but it seems that when the House is due to close down for a week one has a better chance of being selected. The Minister is not here, but I will welcome the reply of the Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar.

I am speaking on behalf of parents in north-west Kildare, but this is a national issue. We have made tremendous strides in the primary school sector, and there are units for pupils with autism spectrum disorder, ASD, in virtually every school in the country. Any new schools being developed will have an ASD unit. While we planned well at that level, we have not planned for post-primary level. The parents of many children who finish primary school would love to see them attend mainstream secondary schools, but they might not be suitable. There are few ASD units in post-primary schools. A number of parents in north-west Kildare contacted me. At least three children there are finishing primary school and cannot access the local secondary school. They have been offered places in Portarlington, which is 65 km away. Asking children with ASD to travel for an hour and a half each way and adding three hours onto their school day is not acceptable for any child, especially those with special needs. The arrangement is also costly; parents have said it will cost the Department in the region of €95,000 per year per child, including the cost of a bus escort. That is simply not a sustainable solution in view of the fact that such money would go a long way towards building additional ASD classes in the area. There has to be some alternative solution.

The local feeder school in Edenderry, Oaklands Community College, currently has one class with six students attending. There is no room to take in another class, and to date up to ten families have looked for places for September 2015. Clearly, it would make much more sense to put the money into building an extension to this school which would include additional ASD classes to meet the future needs of the area. The principal of the school and the parish priest support the building of an extension to provide the much-needed classrooms. The NCSE said it does not want to put too many children with ASD into the one area, which was the reason for not pushing for a unit in Oaklands. However, there are 12 ASD primary classes within a seven-mile radius of Edenderry and these children must be provided for at post-primary level.

The Minister may wonder why I referred to Edenderry, which is in County Offaly, but it caters for post-primary education for the whole of north-west Kildare. There are currently up to 50 children attending primary ASD classes within a five-mile radius of Oaklands Community College in Edenderry who will need post-primary places in the near future. One would hope that many of those children would go into mainstream classes, but a number will need to go into ASD classes. Based on these figures, the Department needs to act now.

As I said, this is an issue affecting not just north-west Kildare but the rest of the country. The Department has planned for primary level but not post-primary level. It is important that we plan for the future of those children who are leaving primary school.

See this speech in context