Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to discuss and examine the supports available for people with special educational needs. As a society, it is critical we deliver an education system that is of high quality for all our children, where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach his or her full potential, and where every child with additional needs receives appropriate educational support based on his or her needs. Over the past 20 years, the system we are speaking about today was developed on a modest basis, and virtually all the Deputies who have spoken have made the point it is not fit for the purpose of the current day. While investment in the system is very welcome and necessary, it needs some sort of overhaul.

I agree with Deputy Calleary’s remarks to the Minister of State. Special education is a priority for investment by the Government and I thank the Minister of State, along with her colleagues, the Minister for Education and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, for all their engagement and efforts to date. My constituency, Dún Laoghaire, has many exceptional service providers, such as the Carmona Services. People working in the sector go above and beyond to support people with special and additional needs and their families, which has to be acknowledged. This year, the Department of Education will spend more than €2 billion, or 25% of its budget, on providing additional teaching and care support for children with special educational needs, while last year's budget delivered significant funding for those with special educational needs. Over recent years, the number of special classes in mainstream schools has increased and stands at 2,148 for the school year 2021-22.

The pandemic has, however, resulted in challenges for children with special needs and their families. As we all know in this House, the online learning many of them were offered was not suitable for some of their needs. Some of them could not engage and some of the physical, in-person activities and classes did not resume. In fact, some services still have not fully resumed and that is of great concern to the children in particular and to their families. While some efforts have been made to support them, we need to do more and, as we exit Covid, ensure services get back to full tilt this September.

Budget 2022 provided for the creation 287 additional special classes for the year 2022-23 and some 269 new special classes opened for September 2021, with a further 33 opening during the 2021-22 school year. The remaining classes must be expedited over the next couple of weeks for September of this year.

That said, some schools have informed me that the system is complicated and lengthy. It needs to be streamlined, mainly for the ASD units. I know the Minister of State is familiar with St. Mary's Boys National School in Booterstown. She will be aware that it tried to transform a local parish centre into an SEN unit. It should be remembered, however, that the principals are teachers primarily, not project managers. Greater support should be provided by the Department to allow them to focus on their school community and allow the project to work in tandem with that.

SNAs should follow the child as well, which is something we heard earlier. I am aware of a number of cases where a child's much-needed SNA joins him or her in primary school and follows the child through his or her education, by and large. Come post-primary level, however, the child is left in the wilderness unless the school he or she is going to has the additional resources of an SNA. Even at that, some schools share SNAs, so there is no dedicated person who knows the children intimately and knows how to deal with and support them and their educational needs.

The Minister of State will be aware of the work of the Parents, Family and Friends of Carmona Services in my constituency in Dún Laoghaire. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has engaged with its representatives in recent months, which is much appreciated. I know they are eager to interact and meet the Minister of State again on the issue of residential care within community healthcare organisation, CHO, 6.

As was said earlier about NEPS and SENOs, all the services that have developed over the last 20 years need to be reviewed, refined and tweaked to ensure children and their families feel the supports are there. The money going into these services is extremely welcome and necessary and it should continue but we also need to ensure it lands with those children who need it.

While much has obviously been done for special education - I commend the work of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, and her colleagues in this regard - we need to review and improve the processes for ASD and SEN units at all levels of education to ensure they are fit for purpose over the coming years.

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