Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I will briefly speak to amendment No. 7, which gets to the heart of the issue, in the sense that it is not enough to just have the power to compel schools to open special education classes more rapidly. The resources have to be in place so these classes actually work for children, teachers and schools.

I hear the Minister's objection, which is twofold. One part of it is that some of the resources being referred to are from the HSE rather than the Department of Education and, second, she thinks it will delay the process or whatever. What is outlined in the amendment, which is a good one tabled by Deputy Ó Laoghaire, is that a report would have to be produced to indicate whether the necessary resources are in place to provide children with an adequate education or not. It is about saying it is just not good enough that a room, library or cupboard will be turned into a special education class so a box can be ticked stating we now have another special education class. That is the point. If the schools, principals or boards of management say, when they very clearly have the resources, that they still do not want to open special classes, that is not on. They should be directed to open such classes, but the resources have to follow. I am hearing that in many cases the resources do not exist and, therefore, we are just talking about a classroom that is not providing what we need.

I hear what the Minister is saying but I will make two comments in response. If the objection was that some of this stuff is not provided by the Department, she could have addressed that by means of an amendment to remove those elements, but that does not hold water because we are only talking about a report here. It is appropriate that we, the Department and the NCSE should have a holistic view of children's education, which, of course, includes resources for therapists, etc., that are allocated by the HSE rather than the Department.

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