Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that we are having a debate on special education in the House. I congratulate the Minister of State on her appointment. As she may be aware, I have been raising the issue of the deficiencies within special education provision for children in my constituency and particularly in County Monaghan for some time. I have a list here of all special schools across the State. A stark statistic is that only two counties in this State do not have a special school and County Monaghan is one of them. When we consider that Dublin rightly has 47, there is a clear anomaly. If it were an isolated position some logical reason could be given, but County Monaghan is also, for example, the only county that does not have a respite service. Across a range of disability services, families of children with disabilities do not just have to contend with the myriad issues that have been raised here relating to the ongoing struggles and battles they are expected to go through in order to secure services for their children, they also have to deal with what I consider to be an inbuilt discriminatory practice against particular regions and particular counties, and above all County Monaghan.

I have had numerous engagements with the Minister of State's predecessor in respect of this. I have contacted the NCSE more times than I care to remember. Time and time again the response I get is, "In relation to the provision of a special school in County Monaghan, I want to reassure the Deputy that both my Department and the NCSE will continue to monitor and review the need for further new special schools or the expansion of existing special schools in the area." We need to get beyond that. The problem is that some of the Minister of State's Government colleagues are whispering that Monaghan is going to get a special school. We hear of anecdotal reports coming from the NCSE that this is being actively considered. First, we need people to be upfront and tell children and their families that there will be a special school in County Monaghan with details of the location and the current status of that. Second, we need a specific timeframe. It is no good - in fact I would consider it cruel - for local TDs to tell families that there will be a special school without indicating whether it is likely or even possible that their child might have gone through the entire education system before it is actually delivered. Third, we need to be very clear as to who will have access to that school.

One of the suggestions emanating from the aforementioned rumours is that it would be very restrictive regarding the conditions or the particular disabilities of children who would be permitted to go there. There is a very good special school, the Holy Family School in Cootehill in County Cavan. The problem is that it is oversubscribed. I deal with dozens of families in County Monaghan who cannot get access to it. In some instances, their children are essentially denied education because they cannot deal with mainstream schooling even in special classrooms and that needs to change. I am asking the Minister of State for a commitment to give responses to those three issues: that there will be a school; the timeframe for its delivery and that it will be expedited as quickly as possible; and that it will be an inclusive school which will not be restrictive in terms of the children able to avail of it.

As I say, there are children being denied education.

There are children in my county who spend longer on the school bus every morning than I do in my car getting from Carrickmacross to Monaghan. They are traipsing across virtually the entire length of County Monaghan into County Cavan. That is a cruel practice. This is the real problem I have with the response I get from the Minister of State and her Department when they reassure me they are continuing to monitor the situation. Before the new Holy Family School in Cootehill was even completed, parents, service providers and educators were telling the NCSE and the Department that there would be a need for an additional school in County Monaghan but no planning was put in place. It is an all-too-familiar story when it comes to the provision of special education. It is left to the last minute and until there is pent-up demand. That needs to change. I hope the Minister of State will be able to address the three specific questions I have put to her.

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