Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank People Before Profit–Solidarity for this comprehensive motion on this most important area. As Deputy Cullinane said, we could paper the walls of the Dáil with debates we have had on disability and special needs provision.

The figures on assessments of needs are stark, considerable and shameful. Just under 11,000 children are awaiting an assessment of need and 110,000 are awaiting essential therapies. Behind all these figures are individuals, children. I want to talk about Frankie Edgeworth, a beautiful boy from my constituency – an autistic boy of five years of age who cannot get a school place. Thirty schools have turned down his application. That is extremely disheartening and worrying for his parents, Shauna and Darren, both of whom suffer from very serious conditions, one with a nervous system condition and the other a functional neurological disorder. This is a family in intense need. Not only has poor Frankie not been able to get into a school but he has been refused by 43 playschools or crèches in his preschool years. As a child who is starting from a difficult position, he has not got the early years education many others can get. He is already behind. He is now not even getting his formal primary education as he approaches his sixth birthday. Unfortunately, Frankie is not alone That is why this motion is so important. It is why this issue is so pressing.

The provision of autism classes in our education system is so far behind where it needs to be. We have 3,300 primary schools in the country but only 1,028 of them, a third, provide autism classes. At many times, they are being provided due to the vigour, interest and desire of a principal and teaching staff, but we do not have a statutory basis for the provision of autism classes in all schools, or at least the vast majority of them. We may be able to accept that in a small number of cases, schools may not have space or may be too small, but the fact that one third of our primary schools have autism classes or non-autism neurodiversity classes is not good enough. Those schools that are providing the classes have a considerable responsibility in each community and are under great pressure. The classes provide help, support and education to autistic children. Pressure comes on from parents who understandably want to get their child into them. They provide a really good service. The secretaries, teachers and principals of the relevant schools feel the pressure and want to provide more classes but cannot. They are being held back from doing so.

Within certain communities, there is inconsistency of provision. In my area, Malahide, for example, no primary school has an autism class yet, whereas the secondary school has two. As we all know, admission policies are becoming more geographically based and, at least in the greater Dublin area. Children growing up in an area such as Malahide cannot get into an autism class there, so they have to go outside their catchment area to find one. Later, when they want to get into the autism class in secondary school, they cannot do so because they have gone to a primary school outside their catchment area. These are the administrative problems and issues that can be fixed to make things a little easier and make more sense for families seeking to educate their children.

As I said last night in the debate, we have been told the recruitment embargo has been lifted. Those are just empty words. The recruitment embargo in the HSE has not been lifted. There are huge lists of vacancies in disability network teams up and down the country. When there is a request to fill the vacancies, management are told they are not allowed to do so. In essence, the embargo is still in place. Nationally, the vacancy rate for therapists is 30%, and it is 40% for occupational therapists, 70% for dieticians and 70% for play therapists. These are front-line workers. These are vital therapists and therapies and these vacancies must not remain unfilled. If the Government is going to say it is lifting a recruitment embargo, it should please do so in practice.

We have spoken before about the need to ratify the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That needs to be done as a matter of urgency. I have no faith that it will be done in the lifetime of this Dáil but it must be done in the very early days of the next Government.

We could go on and on. The motion states the release in August of the autism strategy was not good timing. It was cynical timing and the strategy should have been released earlier. It should have been released a long time ago, when we were in the Dáil and able to discuss it.

Of the 18 programme for Government commitments voted on by family carers, which is the real test, four received a score of regressive, six received a score of no progress, five received a score of limited progress, three received a score of good progress, and none received a score of commitment achieved.

That is from family carers and it speaks volumes. Taking the scores that the Government reports in terms of its ability to deliver in this area and applying them to a boy like Frankie Edgeworth, who I mentioned at the start, that is the reality of failed progress and failed delivery in this area.

This is an excellent and comprehensive motion which details many complex areas in disability and special needs provision. We fully support it.

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