Dáil debates

Friday, 1 July 2022

Education (Provision in Respect of Children with Special Educational Needs) Bill 2022: Second Stage

 

12:50 pm

Photo of Pádraig O'SullivanPádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and Minister of State and thank them for bringing forward this new legislation. As they will be well aware, many of their colleagues in Government have called for this intervention for some time so it is very welcome.

I will begin by speaking to the Bill and what it does. It is going to empower the National Council for Special Education to take action. As other Deputies have mentioned, the spirit of the existing legislation relies on a collaborative approach with schools. That worked in many instances but it is patently clear that it did not in many others. I have pointed here before to areas in Cork I am familiar with, large towns of 30,000 people, where there is only one ASD class, while small villages with a population of 300 or 400 might have three or four such classes. That imbalance is clear for all to see. It is good that the proposed legislation will allow the NCSE and the Minister to intervene to ensure there is appropriate provision for children locally insofar as that is possible. That is to be welcomed.

To keep to the spirit of the legislation and to use these extra powers, the NCSE will undoubtedly require more resources, staff and finance to ensure it can implement the change needed. Mr. John Kearney, the head of the NCSE, came before the Joint Committee on Autism last week. I also met him a number of weeks ago. While he is new to the job, it is clear that he relishes the challenge ahead and wants to make a difference. We need to ensure the NCSE is properly resourced if it is to implement the changes we are calling for.

In his presentation to the committee, Mr. Kearney spoke at length about that local provision I spoke about earlier. I do not have a figure but perhaps the Ministers could come back to us regarding the potential savings on bus services alone if we were to provide for children in their own communities. It is a big gripe of mine. I know of one child in my home county who travels from Mitchelstown to Bandon for an ASD class. Another family I have become familiar with travels from Macroom to Kinsale. If the NCSE is empowered to implement this legislation in the spirit in which it is drafted, it will improve the quality of life and quality of education for those children with special educational needs.

I will speak about wider issues facing children with special educational needs that are separate from the Bill. Therapies were mentioned here again. There is no easy fix to this problem, as some Deputies might suggest. There is a severe shortage of qualified psychologists, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists, not just here but right across the world. Some of this is down to the fact that not enough people are qualifying in these areas but some of it is down to certain people not wanting to work for the HSE. I know of a special school on the north side of Cork city in which the part-time physiotherapist has a caseload of 500 children. That is not manageable. Additional physiotherapists have been advertised for but it has not been possible to hire somebody. Meanwhile, the Rainbow Club across the water does not have a problem filling the posts it advertises. It is clear that there are issues within the HSE with regard to hiring for certain roles. To keep with the spirit of this legislation, both the Department of Education and the Department of Health really need to push to get those jobs filled. At present, one in four or one in five HSE jobs is unfilled. We really need to push the boat out and get those therapists into schools.

The in-school provision model is being trialled in community healthcare organisation, CHO, 7. This trial has been under way for over two years now. It would be great to see a report on that. Is it envisaged that it will be rolled out across the country? How is the pilot scheme faring? Many of us here, on both the Government and the Opposition benches, regularly call for therapies to be provided in schools, where possible. I would like to see how that is performing and to know whether it will be implemented right across the country.

As the Ministers will know, I was a teacher myself for 15 years. There were three ASD classes in my school when I was teaching there and I will be straight, hold up my hands and say that, while I did teach in the ASD hub from time to time, I never really felt my teacher training qualified me to cater for some of the needs presented to me as a staff member. There needs to be more focus on providing additional training modules for those qualifying in our teaching colleges to ensure they are prepared to cater for children with exceptional needs. There is also a need to provide professional development for existing staff because, whether we like to admit it or not, an awful lot of newly qualified teachers go into these ASD classes and special classes. Some teachers are reluctant to do so because of that lack of training and experience and, if I am honest, an ignorance and an apprehension that are sometimes unfounded. The provision of better training in our teaching colleges would assuage some of those concerns.

We talk about inclusive education and a real model of inclusion. That is precisely what this Bill is targeted at providing. As I have said, we need to implement the legislation to the fullest and in the spirit it is meant to ensure that all children, irrespective of need and ability, get to experience that real inclusion we talk about here over and over again.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.