Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

These past weeks and months have shown the best attributes of the Irish people and demonstrated beyond doubt that we are a caring and empathetic nation. From the first incidences of Covid-19, front-line staff across the country took on the challenge of doing all in their power to preserve well-being, while supporting industries ensured the continuation of our supply and distribution chains in food, energy and allied care services.

The Government announced significant funding to support the reallocation of health services and to provide business and welfare support payments as the lockdown period became a reality. How noble we as a people might appear in rising so stoically to such a challenge. However, we have in our midst families who struggle every day to manage difficult and sometimes impossible care burdens as a result of their children exhibiting the most challenging behaviours with complex learning needs. These children require significant and sometimes specialist educational intervention.

This summer's educational programme is a vital support for such families and children as they struggle to maintain their place within the learning curriculum. I welcome any efforts of the Department directed towards the programme this year. The Minister might comment on the possible staff resourcing that will accompany it.

Notwithstanding this year's July provision programme, I wish to highlight to the Minister the challenges facing the ever-increasing number of schools in which such specialist teaching interventions are required. The number of early-going and even secondary school children with behavioural issues who may be deemed to be on the autism spectrum is increasing. Catering to these pupils' needs requires the resources of the Department, and in many cases the resources provided are not adequate to meet the needs presenting at these schools. Many schools are reduced to two or three possible psychological assessments of students in any one calendar year under the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. Many parents are forced to consider private psychological assessment because of the two-year wait time in NEPS, but this private assessment may be considered as an invalid reference for the special educational needs organiser, SENO, whose role it is to allocate special needs assistant hours to pupils meeting the departmental criteria.

I spoke recently to two sets of parents who have gone through this process where the evaluating person who gave the assessment was considered an invalid reference because the assessment was not carried out through NEPS, yet they are qualified to give, and do give, NEPS reports. Schools I have been in contact with have reported that their SENOs allocate a total number of hours and leave it to school management to decide how these hours are to be distributed. This is a wholly unsatisfactory situation, with gross understaffing in respect of NEPS psychologists and many SENOs acting more like accountants than childcare experts when considering the allocation of SNA resources. Not alone are the allocation hours of SNAs inadequate in many schools, but no provision has been made to provide sensory rooms for younger age groups in many schools. Such rooms are a significant component of teaching, instruction and socialisation activity for such children. I have met many parents who are at their wits' end trying to secure evaluations of their children as well as the necessary school resourcing to ensure their children can remain in mainstream education and acquire sufficient learning to achieve their full potential. I have no doubt but that the Minister's email inbox also has many such requests and examples of such situations. I ask that his Department adopt a similar proactive response to that which has been marshalled against the threat of Covid-19 in order that our schools and teachers can deliver a front-line standard of education that addresses the needs of those who most need it.

As part of the Minister's schools portfolio, will he update the House on his thoughts on the planned status of school secretaries? As he knows, many school secretaries work for meagre wages and cannot avail of sick leave or pension rights. How can we value our teaching establishments if we do not value those who are intrinsic to the service delivery on offer, who care, who support teaching management and who contribute so much to safe school services? These are our front-line staff too and they have been conveniently pushed to the background and overlooked. They say it takes a village to raise a child. It is now time to provide equitable pay to these villagers who do so much to oversee the safe and cherished care of all our children.

In discussing the equity and economic benefits of providing educational support for all our students, I wish to highlight that Waterford remains the only city region without a university. The economic consequences of the south-east regional brain drain were plain to see long before Covid-19 arrived in Ireland. Without this strategic component delivered, this region will remain an economic outlier for years to come. A south-east university was flagged as an essential component of the Government's 2040 development programme. It has not seen the focused attention of the Minister's Department, which is required to solve the roadblocks in the proposed TU amalgamation process. I, like many others, look on at the ability of the Department to assist the Munster TU programme with capital supports and industrial relations expertise while reflecting on the fact that one of the highest-functioning institutes of technology in the country, namely Waterford Institute of Technology, has not received a capital funding programme in over 15 years. In addition, a refurbishment programme first requested over three years ago has still failed to materialise. I know change is possibly coming to the seat the Minister occupies. I ask that before vacating it, he set this as a priority project for completion by his Department seniors in the shortest time possible.

Soaring rhetoric on the educational and economic imperatives of this project are no substitute for capital moneys invested to make it a reality. I would welcome the Minister's comments on all these matters.

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