Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill and this debate on it. I welcome how committed the Government is to delivering an education system of the highest quality, where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported.

The key provision in the legislation provides for a shortened section 37A process, whereby a school can be directed to make additional provision for children with special educational needs. While efforts will continue to encourage more schools to open special classes, it is considered necessary to provide for a shorter section 37A process to enable the Minister to direct schools to open a sufficient number of new special classes to ensure that children have a special class placement for the coming school year. I welcome that the shortened process will allow two opportunities for school patrons and boards to make representations to the Minister ahead of a direction issuing.

The total number of special education teachers in the mainstream school system is 14,385 in 2022, an overall increase of 980 posts. Provision has been made for 19,169 SNAs by the end of 2022, which represents an overall increase of 1,165 posts and an increase of 81% since 2011. The issue for me, from working with parents, is the fact that children are not being assessed because of the waiting lists. Therefore, if the school does not have the child's assessment, how does it get a SNA? I am a little confused about that. While I welcome the increase in the number of SNA posts, I am worried about the number of children who are not being assessed and then the school cannot require a SNA.

I need to highlight this for the Minister because ASD classes in Carlow are something I am very passionate about and on which I have worked extremely hard. I wish to plead the case of Scoil Mhuire Lourdes in Tullow, County Carlow. The school has been in contact with the NCSE and the SENO on many occasions, through emails, telephone calls and meetings, regarding a special class for pupils on the autism spectrum in Scoil Mhuire Lourdes. I have been at several of those meetings. Each morning, siblings leave Tullow to trek to neighbouring schools that have ASD classes while other siblings go to Scoil Mhuire Lourdes. How is this fair? Why can children from the town of Tullow not be educated in their town, among their families, friends and community, instead of them leaving the town on buses and taxis to attend classes to support their needs? This really annoys me and I have spoken about it previously.

A case has arisen again this year in the school. A five-year-old child who has been awaiting an assessment since 2019 is struggling due to the level of need and is being left behind. The SENO is aware of the case. The mother has been told that there are no places in an ASD class for the child in the area and she is being asked if she would consider home tuition. Why should a five-year-old child with suspected autism be kept at home simply because there is no assessment or place available? In September, this child would have had no school place only for Scoil Mhuire Lourdes. The school will use the already stretched SNA resources available to support this child in the hope that she will be given the best start in her educational journey in junior infants. This school needs an ASD class, as do many other schools in Carlow. While I welcome this legislation, these are the daily cases I am fighting for all the time. Children who need special classes and who want to be left in their home town in Carlow and Tullow cannot do so. I am very concerned about this and I have huge issues with it. This system needs to be examined.

While the Minister is present, and I brought up this with her yesterday, I must again express my disappointment regarding some of the schools in County Carlow.

I welcome that some schools got DEIS band 2 status, but there is a boys' school and girls' school beside them, both used by the same families, where the boys' school was designated DEIS band 1 while the girls' school got DEIS band 2. They are in the same area, with the same families and same everything. The confusion and unfairness of this is unacceptable. There was an appeals mechanism. My understanding is some of the schools got their letters this week, which was also very unfair, in that the school year finished this week. I welcome the good work that is being done but there is a lot to do.

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