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

I welcome the Minister’s amendments. I hope they achieve the desired effect. I have seen some special schools treat children inappropriately, particularly when dealing with expulsion or suspension, which is similar to admission. I do not want to see any barriers put up for children with special needs. This genuinely has the child’s interests at heart and it should not be a barrier for the school to say it does not want certain classes of children with special educational needs. Special schools and mainstream schools with special classes are finding it difficult to deal with the issue of behavioural challenges. I know the National Council for Special Education has included this in its review, which was launched today. That is welcome but what I am hearing on the ground is that due to the legal liability regarding assaults by pupils on other pupils - I am talking about assaults by children with special educational needs, in particular, who let us be frank do not know what they are doing, are not deliberately setting out to harm others and have a behavioural challenge - is such that insurance costs for some of these schools are becoming prohibitive. A fundamental problem is that teachers or SNAs do not have the necessary training to deal with children with challenging behaviour. Has the issue of insurance for special schools been brought to the Minister’s attention? If it has, does he propose to give extra resources to deal with pupils in such circumstances? I would not like to see children with behavioural challenges excluded from schools because of the criteria he is putting forward in these amendments.

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