Dáil debates

Thursday, 3 September 2020

Back to School, Further and Higher Education and Special Education: Statements

 

6:35 pm

Photo of Kathleen FunchionKathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I refer to the various campaign groups we regularly see advocating, which mainly comprise parents who advocate on behalf of their own children with additional needs. In particular I mention Enough is Enough: Every Voice Counts, and at this stage everybody knows the excellent work it does. I will also reference the AsIAm survey.

It is good that we have a Minister of State with responsibility for special education and I hope we will see results and very good practical solutions for families as a result. AsIAm conducted a survey of 1,100 families in August regarding the return to school and 77% of those families indicated that their children would need extra supports on top of what they had been getting before the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, half the parents felt those supports would not be forthcoming. This highlights how a parent of a child with an additional need faces a constant battle. I have found myself saying this repeatedly, as I have found myself saying repeatedly that we have a two-tier education system when it comes to children with additional needs. Unfortunately, this is still the case as parents and children must wait so long to see if they can secure a class place, even before the issue of transport is sorted, which comes with that. This is unacceptable and I hope that within the Minister of State's portfolio, we will see good and positive changes.

She referenced the July provision in her statement but 53% of parents in the AsIAm survey did not access July provision. Anecdotal evidence suggests parents found the online system confusing and extremely difficult to understand. Disturbingly, simple elements such as links did not divert to correct pages or work at all. We really need to look at this. In general, we get calls from various schools and parents to see if the July programme can be extended and now is the time to look at it for next year so we can extend it to others. I know some additional children were able to access it this year but we can always improve it. The more children get it, the better.

I also ask about assessments, as people have to wait a crazy length of time to get an assessment for a child. The process has become even worse since the onset of Covid-19. At yesterday's meeting of the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response, representatives of Inclusion Ireland stated in response to some of my questions that they felt some of the delays arose from some HSE staff being redeployed to deal with Covid-19 testing and tracing. It is important to note there were extreme difficulties in the area and parents were facing a delay anyway, so all this cannot be pushed to the door of Covid-19. Delays were being compounded so I would like to know if this was the case. If HSE staff are involved with assessments, they absolutely should not be redeployed. I understand the complexities around Covid-19 but children need those assessments.

What is being done for children who would have expected an assessment by now or who should have expected access to an ASD class? I have asked the question in a number of forums on different occasions but what is happening for those children? What is happening for children who had an SNA and resource hours before the Covid-19 pandemic? Is there a commitment to automatically increase resource hours as children will need additional support if they were getting resource hours? SNAs do excellent work. Will there be a substitute panel of SNAs, as we have heard mentioned a lot, for the teaching profession? That is required and it is important for the transition to be done as smoothly as possible with children who are used to a certain person and routine.

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