Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Education and Skills and committee members for producing this very valuable report. When I told somebody today the report was coming before the Dáil, that person, who is on two boards of management, asked me to ask that boards of management and patrons of schools are specifically included in the training opportunities available because there are a number of difficult points. When parents apply for a place in a primary school at very junior level they are told by special education needs organisers, SENOs, to ask for a place in every primary school in the area and told that it would be great if the parent gets a place. Very often, they cannot do so. We need information and support for parents on getting access to an educational place.

Boards of management do not necessarily understand the criteria. They definitely need training. They also need training because, as the Chairman is aware, many issues involving a child with severe behavioural issues go to board level for action by the board and I am concerned about this. The behavioural issues may be very severe and may involve actual or perceived threats to staff or other children in the school. This can sometimes result in the child effectively being excluded from school.

There is an epidemic of this practice in the UK and we do not want to go down that route. We need to think about such exclusions because this is a difficult issue for everybody. The same issues clearly arise all over again at secondary school level. I refer, for example, to a child attending secondary school who is on the autism spectrum and has not progressed in a way that might have been expected or perhaps still suffers from severe behavioural issues. While there are no easy answers, there are practical measures that need to be considered.

I also am aware of a number of children who have transitioned from primary school and are now in their first year in secondary school. They are on the autism spectrum but also have difficult behavioural issues. In Castleknock in my constituency, which is the Taoiseach's home area, there has been no prescribing consultant psychiatrist in the child and adult mental health service, CAMHS, based there since two months before Christmas. The Minister may be aware of what that means. It means that a child with ADHD, panic attacks or other severe behavioural issues cannot be prescribed the medicine that may be essential to him or her to help manage his or her behaviour while attending school.

I raised a Topical Issue matter on this issue earlier in the week to which the Minister for Health replied. It was indicated that other staff could be allowed to prescribe medication. I agree that prescribing medicine in these circumstances is really important for children but it is also important that senior staff are involved in decision-making. The medicine prescribed can have important effects on the lives of both the child and his or her family. We are just developing knowledge in this area and not every school has access to this knowledge.

I commend all the people who work in special needs schools and in schools, as well as all the genuine efforts being made to integrate the children. Reference was made to ASD classes. As Minister for Education and Skills, my colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, dropped the term "unit". Children were sometimes being asked when they were getting out of the unit, as if they were in a place that was somewhat special, so the language was changed. Recommendation No. 6 on standardising nursing and clinical supports is a good solid recommendation. It also is a very ambitious recommendation. I worked for a long time with the Daughters of Charity in Castleknock, the Navan Road and much of the north side of Dublin and I saw big changes in the model on the HSE side. The schools were then left to pick up the nursing support side.

I do not think that situation has ever been fully addressed, except where there is a full special needs school. That needs to be looked at because parents want their small child, with special needs, to be mainstreamed into our educational system with other children as far as possible. That is understandable and good but definitely requires appropriate nursing and clinical support. There needs to be co-operation between the medical and social services and the schools, regardless of whether we are talking about DEIS or non-DEIS schools. In the greater Dublin area, however, the only school parents can often get their children into are DEIS schools because, in practice, they may have more vacancies. The Minister's officials will be able to tell him about that.

Parents raise another issue with me all of the time. Children, in Dublin and elsewhere, are obliged to go on long bus journeys every day. Some children may like and enjoy that. It is, however, very demanding on a child on the ASD spectrum who might have particular sensitivities to lights, movement, noise or traffic, to have to be on a bus for an hour or an hour and a half twice a day. I am sure it is something the educational experts have factored in. Parents usually welcome their child being in a special school but it is a very long journey.

As Minister for Social Protection, I carried out a review, with the chief medical officer of the Department, on the domiciliary care allowance. It was changed at the time to specifically include the behavioural disorders that many of us have only learned of in relatively recent years. I am not sure those behavioural disorders are fully accounted for and recognised by the Department of Education and Skills. The Department of Education and Skills recognises autism spectrum disorders now but perhaps 20 years ago it did not. Behavioural issues, therefore, need some expert attention. In the UK, many children are being excluded from school and much subsequent analysis suggests that some of those children have behavioural issues that could be helped were they to receive expert help.

It is very difficult for a school when staff and other pupils have to deal with a situation like that. It is not always easy. Nobody wants to see children being expelled from school or being excluded. Equally, no one wants parents to be told that their child can only be in school for an hour, that a parent has to be on the premises ready to intervene, should that be required, or be available to stay in the school if the child cannot be taken home. I am sure the staff in the Department have probably discussed this at great length. I like the idea of a nursing presence. That was always available in the specialist primary schools attached to the traditional institutions which provided care for children with intellectual and other disabilities. It makes a lot of sense to have qualified, experienced and skilled nurses available. I appreciate that it would probably be expensive. It is something, however, that needs to be examined and considered.

I return to my experience in the then Department of Social Protection during the examination of the domiciliary care allowance. By consulting with various people with great experience in the field in a range of different countries, it was possible to make vast improvements in who qualified for the allowance. That took some of the pressure off of the families and gave them an acknowledged support. I think the same thing is happening in the area of schools. We are at the beginning of further and better developments. I know many special needs assistants, SNAs. They give enormous support to children and are very important in the life of a school, both for the other children and for the school staff. There should be a focus on providing much more training capacity and opportunities to SNAs because many of us are aware of the great care they give to children. I refer also to school secretaries and the care they too give to children and to children with special needs in particular. If they can be included in the positive developments to come, that would pay major dividends in developing our understanding of how, as a society, we can best respond to special needs. That would be to everybody's benefit.

See this speech in context