Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Every Member of this House who speaks on this topic does so with great empathy and in a very well-intentioned way. The objective of all of us is to ensure that children with special educational needs have an easy and certain passage into education. However, from the point of view of their parents who inspire us all so much, empathy and understanding from us is not enough. It really rests upon us to solve this growing social and educational problem that has developed to a much larger extent in recent years.

Obviously progress has been made in recent years but we still have huge challenges. It is important that we start from first principles and the first principle that I start from is that all children in this country, irrespective of their ability or whether they have special educational needs, have a constitutional entitlement to an education. Article 42 of the Constitution sets out the obligation on the State to ensure that every child is given a free primary education and in effect, there is a constitutional obligation that goes beyond that. That right to an education applies to every child, irrespective of his or her educational needs. This House and the other House have given statutory recognition to that through the Education Act which recognises that the same rights that are appropriate to children without special educational needs should apply to children with such needs. There should not be any distinction between the two when they start their education in the same way as there is not any distinction between children of moderate or extreme intelligence when they are starting out in their education.

It is important to recall that this country made a policy decision that the model of education we are going to use for children with special educational needs is one that encourages integration and inclusion. We have decided as policymakers that we want to see children with special educational needs educated in what we refer to as mainstream schools. It is obviously the prerogative and choice of parents as to where their child goes to school and I am well aware that not every child with special educational needs is going to be capable of attending a mainstream school. That said, the basis of our policy is that it is built on the principles of integration and inclusion. In terms of our international obligations, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities holds that people with disabilities should not be excluded from free primary or secondary education. That is expressly set out in Article 24 of that convention.

Having identified the basic principles to start from, we then need to identify the problems. The main problem with the current system is that it is haphazard when it comes to children being able to access places in primary schools. At present, it is not mandatory for schools to ensure that they have places for children with special educational needs who want to come into the school.

Instead we have a system, and I have seen it in my constituency repeatedly, where parents must, literally, go through a begging process of going from national school to national school to see if the school will take in their child in the forthcoming September. Regrettably, on far too many occasions the vast majority are told that, unfortunately, the school does not have the facilities to deal with a child with such special educational needs. It is not acceptable that we place an obligation on parents that they must hunt around looking for a space in a suitable school. The principle should be that all primary schools should have places available for children with special educational needs. I am aware there is the power under section 37A, which has been used in the past, but unfortunately I believe we will have to use it more in the future unless schools get into line and provide these services. In my constituency, there were significant issues with primary schools that did not offer ASD classrooms. I am pleased to say the position is improving considerably, but we still need to see it go much further.

On the issue of needs assessments, I had an interesting consultation with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and members of the HSE who do the special needs assessments for children in the Dublin 2 and 4 areas. There are huge resource issues in this area. I was informed that the vacancy rate for the staff who carry out special needs assessments stands at 50%. We all know it is much quicker to get an assessment done if one has the money to go privately. We need to assess whether the State is serving parents and children most effectively by putting them on a list where they must wait for the assessment to be done publicly. Perhaps the State should consider purchasing the private expertise to get this work done much faster.

We also need to be aware that there needs to be much greater recognition of the data. We do not have enough data on the numbers of children awaiting diagnosis, the numbers who have been diagnosed and the numbers who have not been diagnosed but are in need of support. We are also aware that the Department of Education has kept SNA hours at 2019 levels and special education hours have been cut for certain schools so that the schools only get hours based on the numbers, rather than on an individual needs basis. This needs to be looked at. There are simply not enough ASD classrooms at present. I am sorry I am running out of time. We need to identify what can be done to help in that regard. I will return to that issue in a future speech. We need greater emphasis on ensuring that integration, which is our desire, is actually achieved in policy.

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