Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Perfect.

Regarding the July provision programme, this programme is vital for ensuring that children with autism spectrum disorder, ASD, continue with some level of structured learning during the summer. All children will experience a level of difficulty settling back into the school when they reopen but for children on the spectrum, and children with severe to profound learning difficulties, that challenge will be multiple-fold and will cause unimaginable distress for the students and their families without supports being put in place. The longer these children remain out of school, the more difficult it will be to re-establish routine. These children will have to rebuild those vital skills necessary in terms of learning, social interaction and communication that they had before the pandemic. That is the reason the July provision is so important for these children. The loss of predictability, routine and structure is hard on anyone but for those on the spectrum and with additional needs, it is especially difficult.

Parents are doing their best but in terms of the contact I have had with them, one of them described the feeling as hanging on by their fingernails, and we are not even at the end of the school term. They feel ignored, that their children's needs are again at the lowest rung of priority for being addressed and that it is more of the same old, same old. They believe they will be going back to constantly having to battle for every single additional support their children need, whether it is psychological assessments or the right of their children to access appropriate education and supports. Will they have to go back to fighting for everything their children need? Will their children be pushed into reduced hours or forced to take a place in a dedicated unit having done so well in mainstream school previously because they have lost those key skills?

Is this where we are? Is this what we are looking at? The Minister should be honest. I ask him to amend the July provision programme for this year, to bring it in later in the year and let it run in the weeks before schools reopen. That is what parents need. They know their children better than anyone else. The same can be said of their teachers. It is grossly unfair for anybody, whether a teacher or a parent, to expect a child with additional needs to land back in school having been six months out of school and to pick up where they were. In short, these children are looking not to be robbed of their potential for the coming school year.

I also raise the issue of the State Examinations Commission and the seasonal employees it employed in habitual contracts over the years. No contact has been made with those employees, which is not good enough. Common manners would dictate that contact should have been made with them. I will be in contact with the Minister about that issue again.

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