Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I will begin by reading into the record the contents of the Bill that Deputies Tully, Guirke and Ó Laoghaire have put forward. It reads as follows:

An Act to amend the Education Act 1998 to grant additional functions to the Inspectorate to examine and report to the Minister on the prevalence and standard of individual educational plans for children with special educational needs on an annual basis; and to provide for related matters.

Be it enacted by the Oireachtas as follows:

Interpretation

1. In this Act, save where the context otherwise requires—

“Act of 1998” means the Education Act 1998;

“Individual Educational Plan” means a written document prepared for a named student with special educational needs specifying the learning goals that are to be achieved by the student over a set period of time and the teaching strategies, resources and supports necessary to achieve these goals;

“Inspectorate” means the Inspectorate appointed under section 13 of the Act of 1998;

“Minister” means the Minister for Education.

Amendment of section 13 of Act of 1998

2. Section 13(3)(a)(i) of the Act of 1998 is amended— (a) in clause (III), by the insertion of the following after “needs”:

“in particular the prevalence and standard of individual educational plans designed to enhance educational outcomes for children with special educational needs or a disability”,

and

(b) in clause (V), by the insertion of the following after “centres”:

“providing data on the prevalence of individual educational plans for children with special educational needs on an annual basis”.

I wanted to read that into the record of the Dáil because these provisions were part of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 and almost 20 years on, they still have not been implemented. It is not good enough to put this back for another year. The Minister of State said she accepts and welcomes the Bill and will put it forward robustly to the review body, which would be very welcome. That said, I will defer to the Deputies who put the Bill forward.

I support this Bill because there are thousands of children around the country who need help now. The Minister of State has painted a picture that does not reflect what parents and schools are experiencing at the moment. Many parents have told me about the one-to-one classes that their children attend and how schools deal with their child. Teachers and SNAs are getting directions from the NCSE on how to deal with speech and language therapy and so on and for many parents, it feels as if the services are fraying at the edges. Their children are not getting the individual speech and language, physiotherapy or psychological therapies that they need.

We know that by law an assessment of need must be completed for a child within six months but children are not even getting that. Parents are having to go to court to get it. When they get the assessment, the services are not there to access. That is why this Bill is very important. It provides for the inspection of individual education plans for children with special needs and gives the inspectorate the power to standardise those plans.

I was contacted recently by the Dublin 12 Campaign 4 Autism Inclusion, with which the Minister of State is very familiar, about the state of the children's disability network team, CDNT, in the area. The CDNT has one speech and language therapist, one occupational therapist, one psychologist and one physiotherapist who will be part time for the next few weeks. The service just cannot work like this. It is going to lead to even longer waiting lists, with a huge number of children and families struggling for somewhere to go.

There are 370 children linked in with the CDNT on the Armagh Road. We have a very special school beside the CDNT base. We were all delighted when the Minister of State met the call for a special school in Crumlin, which opened on the Armagh Road. Our Lady of Hope special school has been open for two years but it has no psychologist, no physiotherapist and no speech and language therapist. There are no services whatsoever in that school which is working with children with very high levels of need. The Minister of State said that the key principle is that the child with the greatest level of need should get the greatest level of support. The children at Our Lady of Hope are not getting that support, even though they are in a special school.

I put a question to the Minister for Health on this and was told it was not under his remit. I then put it to the Minister for Education but was told it was not under her remit either and it was suggested that I go back to the HSE.

It is going from the Department of Education to-----

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