Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleague, Deputy Thomas Byrne, for his work on the motion and all the Deputies who contributed to this very important debate tonight. As the Minister, Deputy McHugh, said earlier, special needs education has expanded much in recent years, which is to be welcomed. Despite that growth, there are still very significant hurdles to be overcome.

Much of the work of the Committee on Education and Skills in recent months has centred on barriers to children receiving a full education, including socio-economic grounds, minority backgrounds and the particular challenges of special needs education. There is certainly wide political agreement that these barriers should be removed and every child must have their rights vindicated. This motion, which Fianna Fáil was pleased to bring forward tonight, aims to ensure that the Minister for Education and Skills would have a more hands-on approach over the coming months in the run-up to September. I acknowledge that the Minister has met teachers and written to schools in Dublin 15 but the matter of special needs school places has not been tackled as the national issue it is swiftly becoming.

I acknowledge the comments from the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, in his response about recognising that the inappropriate use of reduced timetables by schools has an adverse effect on a child's education. It is for this reason that the development of guidelines and a mechanism for monitoring the use of reduced timetables are now being fast-tracked by the Department. It is welcome and was one of the recommendations made by the committee last week in a report we sent to the Minister. We absolutely appreciate that he has taken on board what the committee has recommended in that regard.

The powers under the Education (Admission to Schools) Act should not be seen as a last resort to be deployed in the weeks before the school term begins, as the Minister, Deputy McHugh, said. Fianna Fáil believes those powers should be used when it has become clear there is upcoming demand that would not be met by schools without intervention. This would allow schools the time required to place the full suite of measures in place that are needed by children. In the case of children with special needs, the requirements can be complex and putting them in place within a limited deadline would add extra complication to the process.

The Minister must be willing to step in when the problem starts, not when it has got to the point where it can no longer be ignored, as was the case in Dublin 15.

Every year, Deputies of all parties and none spend the month of September addressing the issues which inevitably arise as parents strive to ensure their children receive an education. Some of this could be avoided by working in the coming months to address the problems before they arise and I hope the Minister adopts this approach.

There is one remaining aspect of the motion I want to address and that is the development of the plan to see in-school speech and language therapies delivered nationwide. Far too often, we focus on maintaining what we have rather than being ambitious for the future. I welcome the pilot project that the Minister has announced as a response to our motion relating to the provision of speech and language therapies which will have numerous advantages in our schools and I look forward to that being rolled out and seeing the response for it.

I am going to give the last word to a mother, Ms Elaine Sears, who contacted me some time ago about her child, Daragh, who could not get a place in a primary school. She said that Daragh is a very capable and happy boy who loves learning and being around other children and having him in school is very important for his communication and developing social skills. He has autism. He is different, not less, and he deserves to have an education that is not going to be a daily struggle for him and his family.

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