Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister and the Minister of State have each stated multiple times, including in the opening part of the address today, that 25% of the Department budget, some €2 billion, is dedicated to meeting the needs of children with additional educational needs. That is an impressive figure but it is little or no comfort to young people and families without appropriate education. It is little help for parents receiving upwards of 20 rejection letters from schools or forced to accept a place for their child that is not appropriate or suitable to their needs. Instead of reiterating the budget spend for this year dedicated to special educational needs, perhaps we should also talk about rights because money does not equate to rights.

In 2016, we were last examined by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and came up lacking. The committee was concerned that Ireland had "no comprehensive strategy for the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream education and the encouragement of their autonomy" and highlighted the lack of action for the full implementation of the EPSEN Act. The committee advocated for the human rights-based approach to disability because we did not have that in 2016 and we continue to not have a rights-based framework when it comes to disability.

Despite what our Constitution, our Education Act and the UNCRPD, which we agreed to, might say, the lived reality for too many children with additional educational needs is that they do not participate on an equal basis with their peers. That is not because of the disability, but because of the system.

Census 2016 showed that, of people with disability aged 15 to 50, 13.7% had completed no higher than primary level education, compared to 4.2% of the general population. AsIAm's appropriate school place survey found that at least 267 children did not have an appropriate school place for this September, though the number is likely to be significantly higher. Some 109 respondents accepted school places for September that are not appropriate for their child's needs, while 241 respondents stated they did not expect to receive an offer of an appropriate school place before September. When do rights kick in? Is it when a family goes on "Prime Time" or comes to the gates of the Dáil? We all know there is not a human rights approach to disability or a realised right to education for all in our country because we regularly see in our newspapers and hear on our airwaves of children and young people locked out of education because they have a disability or are placed in a system that cannot provide the support they need. However, €2 billion will be spent this year.

Approaching 20 years since its enactment, the EPSEN legislation has never been fully implemented but has been allowed to rot. This was a cost-saving measure, lest we forget. The Act predates our ratification of the UNCRPD in 2018 and, therefore, the ongoing review is essential to ensure it meets international human rights standards. We all fear the review of the EPSEN Act will share the same fate of being left on the shelf unless we commit to neither charity nor best intentions but to full, unwavering realisation and implementation of a human rights framework for people and children with disabilities across our island. We need this work prioritised and expedited.

I will touch on the important work by SNAs. A clear lack of respect is shown to SNAs by the Department. We see it in rates of pay for home-based school summer provision of 2022, for example, where the SNA rate is €16.77 per hour, while that of a qualified teacher is between €35.69 and €47.45 per hour for doing the same job. The majority of our SNAs are vastly overqualified for their role, considering the current minimum requirement is a FETAC level 3 major qualification or a minimum of three grade Ds in the junior certificate, yet the Department has refused to raise the minimum requirement to better reflect the work involved and the development of the role since 1979. The national training programme for SNAs that launched last year and runs in University College Dublin is still without accreditation despite an incredible campaign run by SNAs throughout the country over the past couple of years. We need our SNAs. I do not think there is a school that would disagree. To improve recruitment and retention and to offer the best support for pupils who require it, we need to better respect the role.

We see a clear continuation of negligence and exclusion from society for those with disabilities. People with disabilities are more than twice as likely to experience poverty and deprivation as those without. In 2016, only one third of working-age people with disabilities indicated that their main economic status was employed, compared with two thirds of those without a disability. There was also a vast difference in employment depending on the type of disability. Only 15% of individuals with an intellectual disability were employed, compared to 34% of those with blindness or a serious vision impairment, for example. Exclusion from education is exclusion from socialisation, playing and integration for the better of all in our society and it reduces opportunities beyond school. We have to do better. We are failing despite the receipts the Department can produce and that is not to diminish it. Investment and dedicated funding is essential but do not equate to rights.

Only this year the Department produced guidelines on reduced timetables. Of the respondents to the AsIAm survey mentioned earlier, 57% were on reduced timetables. Only this year were positions created for sign language interpreters so deaf children could access mainstream education. I highlight the work of Andrew Geary, a father who had to fight to get this for this son. Parents have to fight consistently and constantly to ensure their children's constitutional right to an education is met.

Questions remain. When will the EPSEN legislation be enacted fully? When will the role of the SNA be professionalised fully? When will their pay be matched with the responsibility and importance of the work? What year will it be when every child has an appropriate school place? We must do everything we can to ensure it is this year, September 2022. Whether that requires emergency legislation or a greater budget, fundamental to it all is a rights-based approach.

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