Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the 24 Deputies who spoke in the debate over the past two and a half hours. They have been very frank, honest, articulate and comprehensive in their contributions on special education. I very much welcome that because it gives me an opportunity to hear from individual Deputies around the country, who hear from their own particular constituents and from advocacy groups about the particular issues they want brought to the attention of the Dáil and to my attention.

It was mentioned here today that empathy and compassion are not enough. I agree with that, but they are also important because they are a motivating factor for somebody to make a difference in this area. It was also mentioned today that financial support is not necessarily important. In fact, the combination of empathy and compassion and financial support are the two things that are absolutely required to drive change. I am intent, as the very first Minister of State with responsibility for special education, on driving that change in a way that has not been done before.

I can say categorically that any of the frustrations that the Deputies in this Chamber may have, I have ten times over, since I am acutely aware on a daily basis of the challenges that we face in this particular area. I meet with parents, families and advocacy groups. I set up the consultative forum on special education so that we could collaborate and have the joined-up thinking that has been spoken about at length here today.

So many issues have been raised that it would be impossible for me to go through every single one in the time available, but I will follow up with the Deputies. We had a Topical Issue debate on the summer provision. Deputy Ellis and Deputy Duffy are still present. There have been many contributions by other Deputies, all of which have merit and value.

The reason I outline the amount of financial support that we have given in the first instance is to show the progress that we have made over the years. That is not to say that it will ever be enough, nor will it solve everything. Practical forward planning is probably the biggest message to come out of today's debate. John Kearney is the new CEO of the National Council for Special Education, NCSE. He is seized with the challenge to concentrate primarily on operational issues within the National Council for Special Education. Much as Members will all hold me to account in my role as Minister of State with responsibility for special education, my role is to the hold the NCSE and the Department to account in terms of providing supports for children with special educational needs. I outlined earlier the fact that we have grown the number of special classes by 450% in 11 years. We will be at 2,463 special classes by the end of this year, and we were only at 548 in 2011. It is important to state that because it demonstrates the progress that we are making.

In my opening statement I set out very clearly the steps that I have taken in the past two years since I came into this role. I know John Kearney, the new CEO, is also looking at areas that need improvement, in particular the forecasting model which Deputy Ó Laoghaire asked about earlier. The Department has 314 school planning areas, which use geographic information systems from a range of sources that include child benefit and our own school enrolment database. What the NCSE does then is it takes the school enrolment data information and builds it into the knowledge and understanding of the incidence of different categories of special education. As we know, the incidence of autism has grown exponentially, not just in Ireland but internationally. The system, which is what we call it, is trying to anticipate the demand and capacity but the desire and intent are not sufficient. We must have it set out in a database that is based on evidence. That is what we are doing. By virtue of the fact that we have the geographic information systems, which are being shared with the planning and building unit, but for the first time only in recent years, we can see through spatial analysis where the capacity is needed and where we can meet the demand in the future.

I have had repeated assurances from the National Council for Special Education that come September, no child outside of Dublin will be without a special class or a special school place come. I have asked that the SENOs would communicate that to the respective parents who may yet be waiting on an individual class. There are some 130 children in Dublin whom I may not be able to provide with a special class or a special place for this September, but we are doing everything we can to ensure that does not happen again. We have looked at every single avenue. We are already at the second stage of the process to deal with section 37A. As I mentioned, I am also actively looking at section 67 of the Education Act, which provides power to the NCSE to designate a school place for an individual child in a special class or in a special school. That will be critical.

In terms of the UN convention, as a lawyer myself, I do not need another lawyer or advocacy group to tell me about the rights that are enshrined in the Constitution. It is crystal clear that education is a right and our education system has to be rights-based and constitutionally based. I am determined to ensure that we get an appropriate placement for every child at the earliest possible opportunity.

There was a lot of discussion about SNAs as well. We will have 19,169 SNAs by the end of this year.

Deputy Martin Kenny brought that up. Clearly, SNAs are of major assistance to children with additional needs in schools. They quite simply could not function without them. The first thing we wanted to do, following the NCSE policy advice, was to set up a training programme for them, which we did in UCD, where 3,500 SNAs availed of that education in five different modules over ten months. We hope more will be able to do so in future. The next step will be to look at accreditation but training was the first thing that needed to be done. SNAs play a very serious role in what they do on a daily basis. The Department is clearly very much aware of that as well.

Summer provision was mentioned. We have put aside €40 million this year for that. I hope this provision will also help children coming from Ukraine who may be able to avail of it for the very first time. Inclusion programmes are in place at primary and post-primary levels. It is important to stress that all 4,000 schools were eligible to apply for summer provision. We provided extra pay and managed to attract graduate teachers, younger teachers and student teachers to supply the summer provision where staff may not have been available in a particular school. Last year, we had approximately 38,000 children. We expect about 48,000 children to participate this year. That is again building on the Covid supports we put in place two years ago. We had the supplementary programme and the Covid learning and support scheme of €52.6 million because we want to make sure that children with additional needs, in particular, do not regress any further than they may have, which they probably did, when all the schools were closed.

I heard Members use some words such as "intransigence", "insecurity" and "frustration". I know those words. I hear them every day and I feel them a lot, but we are making progress. In the past two years in this role, which was never in place before, we have already made major changes. We can do more in the future. The House is aware of my commitment to this area. We have many other good things we will do in the future. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to go over time on this issue, which I appreciate. I again thank the Deputies for all their contributions.

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