Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:recognises that:

— the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) is drastically understaffed, with 95,543 primary and post-primary pupils across 397 schools without access to an assigned NEPS psychologist;

— even for schools that do officially have an assigned NEPS psychologist, access to a psychological assessment for a developmental or behavioural issue is unacceptably long, creating adverse effects on children’s education and reducing access to resource teaching hours and learning supports, and privileging households that have the resources to opt for private assessment;

— there are serious inequities and defects in the current allocation of resource teachers and learning support across schools; and

— there is a serious shortage of special Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) classes at post-primary level, with less than half (45 per cent) the number of classes available at primary level; overall there are 548 ASD classes at primary and just 237 at post-primary, and there is also a severe shortage of ASD classes at pre-school level, with only 127 classes available throughout the country;

acknowledges that:

— while the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has proposed a reformed system, whereby access to resource teaching would no longer rely upon a formal diagnosis of learning difficulty, emotional or behavioural problems, there are legitimate concerns over aspects of the proposed new allocation model for resource teaching and learning supports that need to be addressed;

— the absence of special ASD classes in secondary schools is a national travesty and is creating real discrimination against children with ASD, and a much greater sense of urgency is required to ensure that these children can claim their entitlement to education by gaining admission to an appropriate school; and

— the outlawing of ‘soft barriers’ in the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016, to children with autism being admitted to school is insufficient to deal with the scale of the crisis; and

calls on the Government to:

— give a firm commitment that no child with assessed special education needs will be deprived of resource teaching or learning supports under the new allocation model and that schools will have additional provisions made available for students who start school from September 2017, with a specific diagnosis, either in junior infants or transferring from another school;

— bestow the NCSE with statutory powers to direct schools at primary and post-primary level to establish autism units and/or special classes where these are required in an area; and

— act on the commitment in the Programme for a Partnership Government to increase the number of NEPS psychologists by at least 65 with the goal of reducing the ratio of students to each psychologist in real terms.

Táimid anseo anocht chun an rún seo a phlé maidir leis an Seirbhís Náisiúnta Síceolaíochta Oideachais. Táimid ag plé an easpa siceolaithe atá sa tír seo faoi láthair agus an ganntanas atá ann sa mhéid atá de dhíth ó na páistí beaga ar scoil. Is éard atá ag teastáil uathu agus is éard is gá a bheith acu ná an tseirbhís siceolaíochta seo.

This motion concerns the severe lack of educational psychologists. What is happening to our children today is outrageous and scandalous. There are 95,000 children in schools without any access whatsoever to an educational psychologist. Officially they are told they have no access to a psychologist. There are many tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of others who have extremely limited access to a psychologist. The National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, is drastically understaffed and the needs of children in education are not being addressed. This has been allowed to go on for too long.

The Government's four-year education plan has a modest ambition which has been reduced in the 2017 action plan, yet even with that modest plan nothing is happening. We have been contacted by psychologists who would love to work in the service and simply do not know what is happening in the recruitment process. The Minister for Education and Skills might perhaps clarify that.

There is a serious problem in respect of support for children with special needs. The Minister and the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, have attempted to address that with a new model to come forward next September. Our party and others have engaged with the NCSE because we have many worries about the new system. These worries have not been allayed by the publication of the circular yesterday. In fact our worries about the new model of resource allocation are enhanced by its publication. The first is that a procedure and formula will be worked out with NEPS for the calculation of the complex needs in place. Nothing has been done yet and that needs to be addressed urgently because teachers do not know how the complex needs of the children in their schools will be addressed under this new model.

The second is that the appeals system is to be decided. There is no appeal system for schools that do not have sufficient resources or individual children who will be left without resources. No detail is given in the circular. That reminds us of the procedure under delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS. There is no right to a second chance.

The situation of special classes at primary and secondary levels is a scandal. It is improving at primary level with an increase in the number of special classes. At second level, however, a child falls over a cliff because the service is not in place. That is wrong. It must stop and some effort must be made to address the situation urgently. Each child with special needs has a different need. Some will have to go to special schools, some need special support in mainstream schools, while others will have to go to special classes, but each child, with or without special needs, has a constitutional right to primary education and a statutory right to second level education. The Government must uphold these rights by providing the supports that are needed.

The Government has published legislation and there is not much urgency about it. All sides of this House would be quite willing to push through the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill as quickly as possible, particularly in respect of the baptism barrier and special needs. The Minister has proposed that schools would be forced to accept children with special needs because we know there are soft barriers in some areas to accepting children with special needs. He has said the NCSE can designate a school for a child but he has not committed to giving the NCSE the power to demand that a school provide a special class. I and most Members of this House believe the NCSE should have that power and there are those among the Minister's advisers who also believe that. There are people within the Department of Education and Skills, however, who do not want that power to be bestowed on the NCSE. We will not support the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016 if that power is not in the legislation. It is the right thing to do to ensure children's constitutional rights to a primary education and their rights to a free education at second level are given to them in a practical way. We have to get serious about the right of children with special needs to an education, to be a part of our society, with the benefit of education that we all have, in accordance with their needs. This must be in the legislation and I would say that would be the settled view of the House. The baptism barrier can be dealt with through separate legislation and we will support that Bill too, an area where we hope for reform.

Sinn Féin has tabled an amendment to this motion and there is nothing in it that contradicts our motion.

It expands on our motion to some extent and refers to the appeals system, which is certainly within the scope of the motion, and mentions the need for more NEPS psychologists. The Sinn Féin amendment argues that the 15% cut needs to be restored, which is something Fianna Fáil wishes to be able to achieve in the context of upcoming budgets. It is certainly something we will be pushing for. While we can certainly discuss the amendment tabled by Sinn Féin, my strong view is that it does not contradict anything in our motion. I think we are all on the same page with regard to what we want to do for children with special needs. I think everybody in the House should be on the same page in this instance. The Opposition's job is to put pressure on the Government to ensure this happens.

There are practical things we can do. I have been asked in media interviews about the cost of increasing the number of NEPS psychologists. A good response to such questions is to accept that there might be financial implications and to ask what price should be put on our children's education. From a fiscal point of view, a limited amount of money has already been provided under the education action plan, which means that the recruitment of extra NEPS psychologists would have no financial implications. We have been told that a small number of psychologists will be recruited this year. I am saying clearly that the Minister should get on with the job of making sure that recruitment happens and that psychologists are employed. They need to be able to go about their work of assessing children with special needs and thereby giving them an opportunity to participate fully in the education system. This is about the constitutional right of Irish citizens to an education. If someone in officialdom is sitting back on the recruitment process, it is up to the Minister to speed matters up and get that person's act together because children will suffer in the meantime.

I ask the Minister to introduce an amendment to the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016 that has been sought by Fianna Fáil and others, including professionals involved in this area, to direct schools to provide special classes where necessary. I do not believe that power would ever be exercised by the national council, but it would be enough to ensure schools that are reluctant to provide special classes, particularly at secondary level, have something of an incentive in legislation to make such provision. I accept that many schools provide such classes.

I commend this motion to the House. I urge Deputies to support it. As my party leader and the Taoiseach agreed yesterday, there is a need to ensure that in 20 years' time we do not look back and wonder where we went wrong. We must not be asking ourselves then why we did not serve the rights of our children properly 20 years earlier, as people said and identified at the time.

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