Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies O'Loughlin, Thomas Byrne and Murphy O'Mahony for tabling this motion. I welcome the opportunity to speak on it. I thank the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy McHugh, for his responses to my recent parliamentary questions in this field. I was a bit alarmed to think that rules or regulations for the boards of management of single sex schools precluded them from applying for ASD units. I was very comforted that the response said they were not. It is important for any parent with children with autism or varying needs, listening to this debate to realise that their schools are not precluded. That is set out in the Minister's response to me which stated:

Individual school boards of management are responsible for the establishment of special classes. It is open to any school to make application to the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) to establish a special class.

The following week I asked for a breakdown of where those schools are located in order to build a database of the geographical spread of these schools. There are 131 early intervention schools, 743 primary schools and 322 post-primary schools. Many parents, particularly in my constituency of east Galway, have to travel up to 20 and 25 miles to access the fantastic ASD unit in Carrowbane. It is disappointing that children are displaced from their communities, friends and families. It is a hardship for parents to have to travel such a distance. It is very important that we look at the geographical spread. In Athenry there are two fantastic secondary schools being built. An ASD unit is going into one of them. We should be doing that in every large town where we are developing schools to ensure that when children with ASD and autism make friends they are not discommoded when they go to post-primary and have to try to build up those links again. Parents, teachers and support workers have worked very hard to ensure that there is that level of social engagement. It is disappointing if the school in that parish or community is not available to them that they have to travel.

It is very difficult to get the bus link or route established for people who do not meet the definition of the nearest school. Those are some of the challenges that we face. The Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills, Deputy Halligan, has responsibility for this. Last year St. Jarlath's school in Tuam presented a challenge. It has been fixed but it took several weeks for children coming from a particular area to get the school run working.

In his opening statement the Minister talked about the preschool sector and how important it was to have that and early intervention. We do not need a diagnosis. We are gathering the information. Since the inclusion of the access and inclusion model, AIM, we know how many children are attending preschool and that there is an uptake of 99.8% in the early childhood care and education, ECCE, model. We know what is being flagged through the preschool officer and the public health nurse and what the children need when they get to national school. That is why it is a bit amazing to think that of the 3,305 national schools only 743 are making the classes available. There is a lot of work to be done there. While I welcome the announcement of the 156 additional classes, I am very conscious that we are not even a quarter of the way to accommodating the needs in everybody's community. I compliment my colleagues on tabling this motion. There will be much comfort for parents to think that this is being debated in the Dáil and that their voices are being heard and we are trying to work to ensure their children are supported.

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