Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State knows we already had a debate on many of these issues on Tuesday night. I will expand my comments to address some of the issues within the system.

The Minister of State will know that not every school is the same. As has been mentioned, there are a cohort of students in some schools who are particularly vulnerable and needy. There may be intergenerational educational disadvantage and addiction issues, in addition to higher proportions of Traveller children, migrant children, children who have just arrived from Ukraine and Roma children as well as a variety of issues with which the school has to deal. Within that school there can also be a higher proportion of children who are under the 30th percentile, so all these allocated resources that will be afforded to the Minister of State will be used in that way to deal with the scenario in front of her in the best way she can. There may be a child in that scenario who may be in the 50th percentile but could be in the 90th percentile with certain appropriate interventions. However, a different school may have the scenario, and I know this to be true, of the lowest performing child in reading capability in that school being at the 88th percentile, yet that child will get resources due to the baseline resources all schools get.

This is something social inclusion policy and the NCSE need to address properly. As I said, the child who is at the 50th percentile could be at the 90th percentile. The difference that intervention could make in that child's life over the course of his or her life could be so fundamental and life transforming, but the resources of one school mean it cannot afford to benefit that child because there are so many other needs in that school, whereas that very same scenario would be addressed in a different school. We must not just have a baseline of support for every school but a baseline of support for every child, if we recognise that the intervention of jumping from the 50th to the 90th percentile would make a massive difference in that child's life. As the Minister of State knows, we have an education system that is based on choice, which means competition. When we have competition, in effect, we have a system in which some schools, unfortunately, have a greater level of disadvantage than others.

The role of the special educational needs co-ordinator, SENCo, in the school system needs to be better supported. It almost needs to have the same sort of status within the school as that of a careers guidance teacher. The number of agencies SENCos deal with, the amount of timetabling they have to do, the phone calls they have to make, and the assessments on which they have to follow up are quite onerous. If we were to support that position more, we would have a situation in schools where resources would be better allocated and much more streamlined. We would not have the scenario, as has been explained to me, of paperwork clogging up basic applications for laptops, which can sometimes take three to four months to be processed. All these types of things are the daily grind for people in this position. Nobody in the Minister of State's position, or in the NCSE or the Department of the Education, wants to deny somebody the resources they deserve. As I said, the SENCo positions need to be properly recognised.

As has been mentioned, we keep coming back to the discussion about SNAs. It is still regarded by the Department as a short-term scheme 20 years on.

The question of recognising SNAs' qualifications and so on goes directly to the lack of respect that SNAs feel they are getting from the Department. This all feeds into the narrative. Every year, we discuss the need for SNA allocations to be made much earlier. We have spoken about how late they were made this year. We need to recognise the SNA position as being more than just part of a scheme and instead as being a career. The lack of recognition that their position gets goes to the heart of the insecurity that SNAs feel.

The Minister of State can point to the increased number of SNAs in the system, and that number is to her credit, but a school told me today about 54 students accessing six SNAs. If I remember my maths correctly, six into 54 is nine. That is nine students accessing one SNA. How could any SNA do that job effectively? Much of this has to do with how we have the largest class sizes in Europe. How can an SNA deal with the variety of educational needs in a class effectively when so many of the duties of an SNA dip into the educational area because the class is so large, the needs are so great and the teacher can only do so much? What the SNA is trained to do and is charged with doing dips into other areas because of the workload in the classroom.

I understand that there are approximately 5,000 deaf children or children with hearing loss in the system. Their advocates are telling me that there needs to be greater awareness among, and training for, teachers and SNAs who are dealing with children who are deaf, hard of hearing or suffering hearing loss, given that the children are not performing as their peers are performing. That is not because of any academic failing on the children's part, but because there is no support, awareness or teacher empowerment. The Department could address this matter.

We are still being governed by the five-year-old circular 13/2017. Principals have told me that they find it challenging that only children who are in treatment programmes with disability teams can get resources allocated to them in school. However, if a child has been diagnosed and is awaiting treatment from a disability team, the child cannot get resources in school. I would be interested in the Minister of State's view on this matter.

As was stated on Tuesday and again today, data are necessary. This is where the challenge lies for the NCSE. I met Mr. John Kearney, its new CEO. I appreciate his dynamism and new approach to finding solutions. However, the NCSE would be better served if it had more data and greater recognition of the level of need on a regional basis so that we were not firefighting every year and could project five years or ten years hence. Neither the Minister of State nor many members of the Opposition want to be here every June having the same argument about, or experiencing the same frustrations with, school places.

What comes to my mind in this debate is the word “insecurity”. As I mentioned on Tuesday, if a family is trying to grapple with a child’s diagnosis, there is insecurity about knowing when the assessment, intervention, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy will happen and insecurity about whether the child will get a school place. There is insecurity among those working in the system about whether they will be able to empower the child properly. There is insecurity about the career path of the SNA. There is insecurity for the person charged with overseeing all of this within the school system about whether there will be time and space within the school diary to do it, given the various overlapping agencies that he or she must contend with every day of the week. It is challenging.

Every school deserves resources and I am not in any way suggesting that schools do not. Fair play to the private schools for opening up to other children - I am delighted about that. However, where schools in intense disadvantage are concerned, the children attending them who are not in the siren zone – they are in the extremely vulnerable position of being under the 30th percentile and are progressing okay but could be progressing much better - are deserving of help as much as a middle class child is. This is a challenge for us. The Minister of State will agree that we can find solutions to it, but they must be socially inclusive and we need to work hand in glove with the NCSE on finding them.

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