Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wish to draw a parallel. I attended at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Gender Equality this morning at which there were presentations from groups involved in care work and some academics. It was interesting that the same issue arose about not knowing the full extent of the care needs, the numbers of carers and those who undertake care work in the country. It is, therefore, difficult for those organisations and the supports around them to make plans. There is a parallel to be drawn with the NCSE and the lack of available data to plan for children with special needs. There are similar issues in other areas. I have heard reference to that issue in most of the contributions to this debate and it is a real problem. Policymakers and those whose job it is to enforce policy need to have every bit of data to hand to plan not only for today, tomorrow and emergency situations but also for the future.

I know this an area with which the Minister of State will be familiar because I was with her at the opening of Our Lady of Hope School in Crumlin. She will also be familiar with the magnificent campaign that the parents and the community in that area conducted to get that special autism school. It has been open for a year now and the school has never had any therapists on-site. This is a problem. Despite the school, the SNAs and the teachers, some of these children still have considerable special needs. They need physiotherapy, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy, and still there are no therapists on-site. There is a feeling in the area that getting the school was more than most places get so the needs of those students must have been met but that is not the reality. There are enormous needs in an area such as Dublin 12. It is a growing area. It is one part of the country where apartments and homes are being built. We still do not know what resources are going to be needed for all the new families, never mind the existing families in the area.

The D12 autism community campaign conducted its own survey, which cannot have been thoroughly scientific but was carried out as well as the campaign's members could. They surveyed 35 families and found that 56% of the children with special needs in the area have access to no services at all. They are beginning to feel they have been forgotten about because they got Our Lady of Hope School. The supports cannot stop at that. I have submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister of State on the issue and I know the campaign has also written to her. The area has 17 schools, four of which are secondary schools and none of them have special autism classes. The experience of many parents is that their children need to be in special autism classes rather than in mainstream classes. Getting a place in a mainstream class means that the student gets an SNA, if he or she is lucky, but does not necessarily mean they get the therapy required. That is how children fall through the cracks. The longer this goes on, the more cracks appear and the more children fall through them. It is not even a cost-saving mechanism. This needs to be considered as an example of where things could be done differently. It cannot be too difficult to get one special classroom in every school. We also need to ensure the building work is done in time. The building work for one special classroom that is due to open in September has not even started. I plead with the Minister of State to listen to the parents and those who are involved with the children. I ask her to consider the needs of the area.

I have been in touch with a principal of a school in Dublin 8 who thinks the Department does not grasp the choices that principals have to make on a daily basis. Because of that, they are allocated scarce and finite resources and must continually prioritise children with complex needs for whom the schools are not sufficiently equipped or resourced to care. That means the moderate needs of some children, which does not mean they need no help, become more grave because they cannot be facilitated in the classroom. Those children are equally worthy of the resources to cater for their needs. They are falling further and further behind. There is a pattern involved. As a result of the exasperation and frustration of parents, and the utterly painful lives they have to lead, they are issuing solicitors' letters to the schools to try to get results. That is expensive for the parents and for the principals who are legally obliged to respond.

We need to start planning for what is required. We must understand that absolute data are required to fulfil the needs of children and to plan for the future. A cohort of schools is educating children who are becoming more and more marginalised and are being left behind. I know that the delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS, programme has a special meaning and is supposed to have a special place but schools with that designation are not getting the resources they deserve. It is awful to have to come into the Chamber and complain about the situation all the time but I am lucky because I am not a parent of a child with special needs. Some of those parents who have to live with the situation day in and day out are at the end of their tethers. Something drastically different must be done. The system needs changing.

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