Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Catherine Martin.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. I regularly have people calling to my office to raise this issue. I expect it is the same for other Deputies. It happens because there is a problem with the psychological services or the absence of them. The issue arises regularly. Last week a particular case arose. A child was facing exclusion from school activities due to the lack of supports. Of course there is long-term damage for such children because self-esteem is not something we can measure. Obviously, excluding the child is a major step for the teachers in the school to have to take.

Parents constantly tell me that their children are not being called for assessments simply because no psychological staff are available. It can be very much a post code lottery. Not unlike Deputy Thomas Byrne, I happen to live in an area where there is a disproportionately large young population. There are commitments in the programme for Government to increase NEPS staffing resources by 65 individual therapists. Such an increase would represent a 25% increase overall. However, there has been no increase in the number of assessments and no reduction in the waiting lists. As of January 2017, a total of 321 schools have no access to NEPS psychologists due to staff vacancies. Some 223 schools had no access to psychological services due to leave arrangements.

Many children are on the autism spectrum. The service has been developed over years. Often, services were developed because parents went to the courts and fought for appropriate education for their children. I remember when some autism spectrum units were built specifically at primary level. The one school decided to hold out and wait until it got the associated services. Those involved knew that this was the best thing to do because if they did not get the services at the beginning, they would not be added afterwards.

I do not understand it. Children are identified at preschool level. They eventually end up in a primary school but some schools want to be selective. For some reason, it does not seem to follow that the need of the child is captured for second level. Inevitably, the huge folder, familiar to any parent who has a child with special needs, gets pulled out again and the parents lobby once more for services for their children or for appropriate education for their children at secondary level. I do not understand it. If the information is available, why is it not captured or planned for? Why are parents constantly put through the same fight all over again? I have never met a parent of a child with special needs - regardless of the end of the spectrum at which he or she is placed - who does not end up being almost a professional lobbyist.

There is no doubt that there is an obvious gap in psychological services. It is an obvious thing to say, but children only get one childhood. If a child is deprived of necessary services and supports in childhood, essentially the consequences follow through in terms of outcomes in future. This must be seen as an investment. There is an educational window of opportunity. If we do not pick it up at the early stage, we will not get the outcome to which the child is entitled in order for the child to be treated equally in this country. The matter merits the attention it is getting tonight.

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