Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

People Before Profit requested this debate at a meeting of the Business Committee. We are glad it is happening. We requested it because, like everybody else, we are being inundated by families who are concerned for the welfare of their children. It is clear that the State - the Government - is failing children with additional needs and disabilities. That is an unacceptable moral failure that flies in the face of the commitment of this State to cherish all the children equally. It also flies in the face of our legal obligations under the UNCRPD to ensure equality for all children and to provide for their needs and make sure they are not excluded from education. The equation is simple. Children with additional needs who get the support, resources and services they need will thrive and flourish in their lives. If they do not get these, they will struggle. Their ability to reach their full potential will be limited and obstructed and will leave their parents frustrated, tired, angry, stressed and worried. When you talk to parents of children with additional needs, the story is always the same. That is how they feel. I asked Rachel, another mother with a child with special needs and who is in the Public Gallery, what her message is to the Minister. She said simply that when it is a big enough challenge in and of itself to have a child with special needs, why does the Government make it more difficult for them? It is a constant struggle. Somebody else told me today, in simple summary, that having a child with special needs means spending your life on a waiting list or being refused things. There are waiting lists for assessments, waiting lists for services, waiting lists for ASD classes or class places, waiting lists for appointments with children's disability network teams, waiting lists for CAMHS and the list goes on - people waiting and being refused.

Another case brought to my attention involves Kellie, a mother whose daughter Jayda regressed when she was a year old. She was sent to the primary healthcare team for occupational therapy. Kellie was told that Jayda needed a support team, so the family and child were referred to the CDNT. They were accepted and put on a waiting list to be seen. There is a 28-month waiting list. She is also waiting for an assessment of needs, and if she gets her assessment of needs, she will maybe be waiting for these services. There is one more from a meeting we held recently in my constituency. A 17-year-old was diagnosed ASD at the age of six and since then has had three interventions. That is three interventions in the 11 years since, and when she is 18, she will lose all of her supports completely. It is dysfunctional. It is failing. I have brought up several times the new algorithm in the context of special education teaching resources, with one third of schools losing resources. In my area, Monkstown Educate Together has lost a special education teacher. Sallynoggin Killiney Educate Together is massively oversubscribed and has waiting lists for ASD classes. It has asked - as have I on its behalf - for approval for a second ASD class. The one it has is massively oversubscribed. This is a new school. It asked the Department of Education for a new ASD class, and we should bear in mind that some schools do not feel able to have ASD classes. The Department of Education said "No". It will not give it because the school is in temporary accommodation. It will not give it until the school has its permanent accommodation, and the Department has no idea when that will be. There is also the issue that if you have to give up work because you cannot get school places there is means testing for the carers allowance and the prospect of lost income and lost employment. It should have been mentioned that Greg and Nicola are both SNAs, so as well as not being able to get school places for their own children, if they have to give up work because of that the schools in which they work as SNAs will also lose.

There is a crisis and complete dysfunctionality when it comes to resources and services needed for children with special and additional needs both in school and outside school. What is the emergency response going to be to address these problems? Talking to teachers and parents at the meeting I attended, the issue at all of those levels is the lack of staff, whether with waiting lists, SNAs, CDNTs or CAMHS. There seems to be no will on the part of the Government to go out on a massive recruitment drive to fill those posts and not to have a box-ticking approach to this. It needs to treat people on the basis of their needs and humanity as children and to trust the parents and the schools to outline the needs and respond and provide the resources on the basis of the needs of the children rather than some box-ticking exercise.

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