Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This motion, which seeks to ensure no child will be deprived under the new system, places the wider issue of early intervention services and access to educational psychologists at the heart of the debate. The Government is dealing with many crises in areas like health, housing and homelessness. It is also facing industrial relations unrest. I honestly believe the Minister, Deputy Bruton, is dealing with one of the biggest crises in the country. It is going very quietly because these children have such a low voice in society and their parents are so exhausted from fighting so hard to get basic services that they cannot even get around to lobbying on behalf of their children. I honestly think that when we look back 20 years from now, we will reflect on the fact that we deprived our children of access to educational psychologists and early intervention services, even though we knew that they needed such services and that such deprivation would have a long-term detrimental impact on their educational achievements and their future well-being, as a black mark on our State.

It is not clear how schools that require additional resources will be given those resources under the new assessment. We need to know exactly how the new system will operate so that we can identify any possible negative impacts on the children served by it. We have learned that every child with a special need is unique, as are his or her educational needs. The allocation of additional resources, such as teaching hours, to children with learning difficulties is often done on the basis of over-labelling of behavioural disorders. This does not help anybody. No child fits into a box set by a Department.

We are all aware of the serious inequalities in the current allocation of resource teaching hours. To be quite honest, this can be attributed to persistent failures on the part of the State. If a child is to gain additional resource teaching hours, a psychologist must make an assessment that he or she has a learning difficulty. Parents may seek such assessments privately or publicly. If they do this publicly, they will have to wait at least a year if not longer. Many parents who try to do this privately simply cannot afford the cost, which can be in excess of €1,000. It is generally well-off families that can afford to pay privately. It must be heartbreaking for parents on low incomes who know their children are being deprived and who understand the long-term impact on their children of not getting early intervention assessments and services, but cannot do anything about it.

I can only imagine what it is like to be a parent in such circumstances. Like many Deputies, I have met parents in this situation who have sat in front of me in tears because they cannot afford to pay privately for the assessments their children need in order to access the services they require. They are absolutely at their wit's end and absolutely exhausted. We often do not hear their voices because they do not have any energy left to fight and they have given up. We need to do all we can to ensure there is equality in our system and the necessary services are available for our children. The Minister is in charge of those services and is vested with the relevant powers. When we are looking back in 20 years' time, if we have to say our children did not get the services they need, the Minister, along with his predecessors and successors, will be asked to stand and answer.

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