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

First, I apologise to the Minister of State for being absent for the start of the debate. I was travelling up from an event in Cork this morning but I was listening to her contribution. I am often critical, but I recognise the Minister of State is well motivated and wants to see progress on special education. I believe I appropriately commended the Minister of State at the time of the budget on the additional budget for special educational needs. That was welcome.

I listened to the Minister of State's speech and the start of it was an outline of a series of figures. She correctly acknowledged the fact that for many parents any number of numbers is not going to change the fact their child does not have a place. However, it is more than that. To a significant extent, this is not a budgetary issue. It is about forecasting and planning. The Minister of State said that forecasting happens in terms of places. I find that hard to grasp because there has been the same pattern in recent years. The geography changes a small amount, but fundamentally, in areas where there is a young population, it is the same pattern every year. Parents come forward in September and October to inquire because they are worried about school places, indeed for the following September as well. They go to the Department and the NCSE, who assure them there are an adequate number of places. They continue to reassure them until the Department and the NCSE panic in March and April and, unfortunately, this year, in May and June because they realise there are not enough places. We know there are more than 120 too few places in Dublin.

If there is a projection model being used by the Department and the NCSE based on population data or, for example, the number of children in special classes in primary school going into special classes in secondary school, I do not understand how significant numbers of children, well over 250 across the State at a minimum, continue to be missed. I am of the view that if the Department had identified in September and October there were 120 children in Dublin who do not have a place in a special class, and there are probably 700 or 800 schools in Dublin, it is surely the case the Department would have been able to find places in special classes had it and the NCSE put the effort in at that stage. I absolutely believe that is the case. That is the part we need to crack. Over the course of the past 15 years or so, we have increased the proportion of the educational budget that goes to special educational needs, but we have not got anywhere near cracking the issue of planning. That is the issue on which my motion on Tuesday focused and which I urge the Minister of State to get right from now on because it is leading to parents currently not knowing where their child will be in September and to parents worrying about where their child will be in September 2023.

Some of this is because, perhaps, there is a desire on the part of the Department and the NCSE to will it into existence, to hope there are enough places. That is obviously not the case. There is an awful lot to do. There is the medium term and the long term. In the long term we want to work towards a system where there is greater fluidity whereby children have much more scope to move between special school, special class, mainstream and mainstream special class as their needs require, as they progress and so forth. We are a significant distance away from that because a number of things must happen at the same time. First, to ensure children who have additional needs can thrive in the mainstream, we must bring class sizes down and ensure there are an adequate number of special needs assistants, SNAs, which is a point to which I will return. We also must crack the issue of therapies. I saw the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Rabbitte, here a short time ago and I am sure she will return soon, but therapies are an essential element of this. This is not just education in terms of teachers and SNAs but also in terms of speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and psychologists, who will all play a crucial role in ensuring these children can thrive. We must move forward on all those elements together, and some of them will take time.

In the meantime, the bare minimum we should be providing is enough places in special classes and special schools every year. I do not believe that is beyond our budget. This is not just a question of throwing money at it and hoping it will go away. Only proper planning will achieve it. If there is a forecasting model, we need to hear a little more about it because it does not appear to be cutting the mustard.

There is another issue in respect of section 37A. There is the medium term and the longer term, but we have the immediate term, which is an emergency situation for this September. That emergency has been apparent for some time. Several parties in the Opposition, as well as AsIAm, Inclusion Ireland and Families Unite for Services and Support, FUSS, Ireland, have been making it clear there is an emergency. I heard the Minister of State talk briefly about section 37A, saying she has begun that process. She has spoken in the past about the need for emergency legislation. I am not sure I heard that in her opening statement today or in her speech on Tuesday. It appears this will be rolled into the review of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act, which is more a medium-term project and objective.

Where stands the proposal for emergency legislation on section 37? How are we going to ensure people have a place for this September, which is only 14 to 15 weeks away? It is a very short period of time until those children will be going to school. Obviously, that puts the schools in a difficult position, but it also puts the parents and the children in a difficult position. I did not hear enough from the Minister of State. There was some good stuff in the statement but I did not hear enough about how we are going to get places for those children in September. Will section 37A meet the needs? Is there going to be emergency legislation? Are these centres of special education going to happen?

It seems to me they are not. I welcome the fact they are not because it is isolationist and would segregate children from their peers. The parents in these instances chose to send their child to a special class as part of a larger school community because what they wanted was the opportunity to integrate with the wider school community. This would have sent them away on their own. I know the Minister of State will say it would have been a temporary measure, but we have an entire history in this State of temporary measures that end up being far from temporary. Direct provision is a classic example. The NBA flats near where I grew up were meant to last ten years and they lasted 30 years. We have a long track record of temporary solutions proving permanent or semi-permanent. I note the Government has not explicitly ruled it out at this point, but my fear is that if it is put in place, children could end up there until well into the following year and perhaps even a full school year. That would not have been in keeping with the principles of inclusion and ensuring those children get the best possible opportunity.

Undoubtedly, section 37 needs to be streamlined but there is a need for an emergency response. We should not need an emergency response. The Department and the NCSE should have been on top of this a long time ago, but we are in this situation and we must do what we can to vindicate what is a constitutional right for these children.

I also want to touch on the subject of SNAs. The Minister spoke about SNAs and the importance of their role. I very much agree they play a crucial role, one that for far too long has been neglected, diminished and shown inadequate respect. I fundamentally disagree with the approach adopted by the Department on the minimum qualifications. The Department makes a big play of the SNA announcement in the budget every year. It has been 1,000 or 1,100 every year for the past four or so years, but in each of those years we have not actually got 1,000 or 1,100 because the terms and conditions are not attractive enough. It is usually 750 or 800 that come through the system. When schools wonder why they do not have enough SNAs, in particular new and developing schools, a big part of the problem is that it is not all that easy to recruit SNAs because it is not the most attractive job in the world. In part, that is down to the minimum qualifications. The Minister of State and the Department are trying to roll this into part of the public sector pay talks. That is completely the wrong approach. It is putting the cart before the horse. That means it will be years before there is any real progress. The expert independent analysis, which we will be discussing at the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science this week or next week, should happen in advance of anything like that in order that their qualifications can be properly evaluated and any pay talks can reflect the improved conditions.

I will finish on that because I may possibly be going over time. We have an emergency situation that needs to be addressed urgently. I urge the Minister of State to use every power in her capability and, obviously, budget, but this is more than that. In the longer term, we need to get better at planning. These children have a constitutional right. We need to plan better, and it needs to be right at the start of the school year that we make these decisions.

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