Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge my co-proposer, Deputy Guirke, and Deputies Andrews, Collins and Ó Ríordáin for speaking in support of this Bill. I am disappointed the Minister of State has proposed an amendment to delay the Bill for 12 months. Children with additional needs have waited long enough. They have waited for almost 20 years for these supports which were promised under the EPSEN Act. I do not really see an issue with allowing this Bill to proceed in order to allow children who are currently in school to receive the support they need. I know the review of the EPSEN Act is ongoing. I hope IEP is going to be part of that legislation anyway. It would then be in place for children who currently need that support.

I taught in a school prior to being elected to this House. We had a large proportion of students with additional educational needs in the school. We had a very committed special education teacher in the school who worked with all the staff to prepare IEPs for the students. We knew we did not have to do it but we felt it was worthwhile. It helped the students but it also helped the teachers to have targets and goals to work towards. One could measure how a student was doing in the school and it worked extremely well, but the fact is that many schools do not do that. The fact we had so many students coming into our school with special educational needs was that other schools did not want to take them. They did not want to be bothered with having to provide the extra supports and resources to deal with them. I know that has been addressed with the Education (Admission to Schools) Act and that things have improved, with more schools taking students with additional needs, but that is how it was happening.

On the consultation, I was under the impression the Minister of State indicated at a committee last year that the review would be completed by early 2023. Maybe I have mistaken the dates but the consultation is ongoing at the moment. A disabled persons' organisation, Disabled Women Ireland, was at the Joint Committee on Disability Matters today and it has put forward a submission to the consultation on EPSEN. The witnesses said they put themselves under pressure to get it in on time, only for the deadline to be extended. They asked if they and others could be made aware of that. It did not just happen with consultation on EPSEN but it happens all the time and they said it can be hard to engage. The information is often not accessible, which we need to be aware of. Information should be accessible to disabled people.

The Minister of State mentioned that the need for a diagnosis was removed so that students could receive supports and resources in school. I am aware of that but unfortunately a diagnosis is still required by schools for children with autism to gain entry into either a specialist school or a class. That puts significant pressure on the assessment of need process. We know we do not have enough psychologists. There has been a discussion of psychologists and the lack of regulations which could be brought up again.

We have to move towards a much more inclusive form of education. If all the supports were put into mainstream schools - I know there is a considerable number that is improving all the time, which I welcome - there need for more so that children can go to their local school and get the support they need. Many more students could get the education they need in their local school rather than having to travel a distance to get entry into a special autism class.

I am disappointed that there is a time delay on this and will oppose the amendment.

See this speech in context