Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “calls on the Government to:” and substitute the following:“— provide all necessary resources and training to urgently resolve issues which have been officially identified in Cork and South Dublin;

— commit to an appropriate amount of special classes in each administrative area and to publish an implementation and resourcing plan as urgently as possible;

— implement the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 in full, and urgently engage with unions and the education partners to ensure that all Individual Education Plans are in place and fully resourced for every child with assessed special educational needs;

— produce a rationale for the gap which exists in funding for children with special needs at primary and secondary level schools and commit to closing that gap;

— prioritise the construction of special schools on the Department of Education and Skills project list;

— issue a circular outlining the financial resources and staff training available to schools who wish to open a new special class;

— produce a five year forecast of the current and future need for special needs education places both across the State and also in the catchment area of each school and to

communicate this demand to schools within each area and within six months;

— publish a list, by school, each May of all available school places in ASD units for the coming school year;

— commit to using the powers contained within the Education (Admissions to Schools) Act 2018 where implementation plans deem it necessary, giving a minimum notice of

six months to schools affected;

— have an appropriate inspection regime in respect of special classes and ensure that there are an adequate number of inspectors to facilitate this;

— commit to the publication of an annual report on the number and circumstances of students with special educational needs, and the number whose needs are not being

met by the education system and why;

— provide adequate budgets to ensure that special schools have proper provision of therapies to support their students;

— provide for greater flexibility in the School Transport Scheme for children attending special schools or ASD units, that may not be the nearest special school, but were

unable to obtain a place in the nearest special school or ASD unit; and

— immediately establish an all-party Oireachtas Committee on Autism, as set out and supported by all groups in the motion agreed by the House on World Autism

Awareness Day, 2nd April, 2019, and for this Committee to develop and publish a comprehensive autism empowerment strategy within a six month period of its

establishment.”

I only have five minutes to speak, but I could speak for ten times longer on this issue, based the conversations I have had with constituents alone. I commend Deputy Thomas Byrne for bringing forward the motion. The amendment we have tabled is constructive and intended to strengthen what is in the proposal. In 2012, the people passed the referendum on the rights of children, and the principle that the best interests of the child are paramount in any situation where children and their supports are being discussed or legislated for was inserted into the Constitution. The more years have passed, the more it seems that the referendum was more show than substance, particularly for children with special educational needs, as the State has failed to apply their best interests. It is not in the best interests of children with special needs in our education system to languish on waiting lists for assessments indefinitely; for their parents to be frustrated at every turn; that the additional supports required by children with speech needs are inadequately resourced; for ASD units to be promised only for such promises to be broken time and again; and that there is a deficit in transparency and information from the Department, the NCSE and various other bodies.

The frustration felt by parents of children with special educational needs, who have to fight for every inch, has been reflected in some contributions. During the recent local election campaign, I met a quietly spoken woman in the western part of Cork city. She was initially reluctant to talk to me, but once she got in the front door, she did have some things she wanted to say to me. She broke down because of the frustration of the issues she had been dealing with and the challenges she had to work with for her children. I refer to the sacrifices people make. Deputy Crowe told me of a constituent of his from west Dublin who is the mother of a child with special needs. She has moved to Wexford, where there is less, though still significant, pressure on the system because there simply was no capacity in west Dublin. She now sees her husband at the weekend and they are trying to move things back and forth. These are the sacrifices people are making. Over the summer, I dealt with a constituent who had been refused by ten different schools over a range of 30 or 40 miles, which covers many schools in the Cork city area. All the units were full and the schools told the family that they were on a waiting list, or did not have the capacity, and so on. It is extremely frustrating. I acknowledge that the Minister is now directing schools. However, both the motion and our amendment state that should have happened a long time ago. We need to plan on a long-term basis the same way we do for new schools, although that process is not perfect either. We need to plan on a long-term basis for where the capacity is required and where the spaces will exist because we simply do not have the capacity, particularly in our major cities.

The Minister mentioned special schools, which are an important component of the education system. There are serious issues with special schools due not only to the Department of Education and Skills but also the Department of Health. Parents whose children are in special schools have told me they were nearly better off in ASD units, because they no longer benefit from speech and language or occupational therapy services and so on. Much of that is now the responsibility of the HSE and a number of service providers. I refer to Cara junior school, just outside Cork city, about which I have met with the Minister, as well as the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, and other Deputies on two occasions. This school has had an ongoing issue for three or four years. According to the National Disability Authority's report on disability services in Ireland, this school should have between 1.5 and 3.3 whole-time equivalent employees for psychology, speech and language and occupational therapies for the 66 children attending the school. The actual allocation is 0.4 for both psychology and speech and language therapy, and 0.3 for occupational therapy. The reality on the ground is that children who cannot speak get no access to speech and language therapy, potentially for years at a time, which is unacceptable. The HSE needs to ensure that when these schools are established, service providers such as the Brothers of Charity and others get another allocation for the additional needs these schools have. It is just not good enough and much more is needed in order to vindicate the promise made to the children of Ireland by constitutional amendment in 2012. There is a serious need to act on it.

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