Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with the issue on which the Deputy has focused in Leaders' Questions. I have dealt enough with the hospital today. I watched that programme. It is not good enough. The State has failed the Milne family, and Ryan and Kyle in particular, in terms of providing a proper, comprehensive education for the children that would be appropriate to their complex needs. They have applied to two schools and been refused.

This morning I spoke to the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. I also spoke to the recently appointed CEO of the National Council for Special Education and the assistant secretary in the Department of Education. All are possessed with the need that this does not happen again. In the past two years there has been significant expansion of special school places, but new special schools were also created. There are three new schools, two already established and a further one to be established - two in Cork and one in Dublin. Apparently, it is the first time in more than a decade that new special schools have been established.

I apologise to the Milne family on behalf of the Government, because it simply is not good enough. I do not stand over this. There is an absence of proactivity in the system. The people to whom I spoke today are all possessed with getting this right. There are a number of things that we need to do. The Minister of State first of all has been working on expanding capacities within existing special schools, some of which are running out of space. Some are saying that they cannot take additional students. The other action is to create new schools. My own view is that we must bring in the education and training boards, ETBs, more and more to establish new special schools in their areas of jurisdiction. From the State’s perspective, into the future the ETBs will now take a lead in providing special schools. I know that National Council for Special Education, NCSE, will be in touch with the City of Dublin ETB in relation to that. That is what happened last year. Existing organisations have provided over the years and they will continue to do so. However, we need to broaden capacity.

In the immediate short term, the Department and the Minister of State are looking at those existing schools to which applications have been made and whether additional space can be created elsewhere in order to facilitate the children who are without places.

We also need stronger legislation. No longer can it be an option for schools to say, “We are not taking in children with special needs”. Some years ago, the House brought in amendments to section 37A of the Education Act. These are not strong enough in my view. They are too bureaucratic. The Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act needs to be reviewed. The Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 needs to be reviewed, in my view, as does the Education Act 1998. There is a collective responsibility on all schools to take children with special needs.

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