Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

recognises: — the fundamental right of every child to access the education system;

— the current and projected demand for special education placements is growing;

— the current shortage of special classes and appropriate school places, leaving children, particularly those with additional needs, without access to suitable education;

— the trauma and absolute heartbreak endured by parents and families due to the lack of suitable school places;

— the failure of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments to adequately plan for, and invest in, the expansion of special education;

— the lack of coordination between the Department of Education, the National Council for Special Education and schools, resulting in a fragmented and inefficient system;

— the disproportionate impact on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who face even greater barriers to accessing appropriate education; and

— the current state of special education is unacceptable and fails to uphold the rights of children with additional needs; and calls on the Government to: — immediately expand the number of special school places, special classes and special education teaching hours across the State;

— ensure every child currently without a suitable school place, and all those due to start Primary or Post-Primary Schools in September, 2025, have access to a suitable school place within a reasonable distance from their home;

— enact the Education (Inclusion of Persons) Bill 2023, and the Education (Amendment) Bill 2024, to identify demand, gaps in provision, and to develop a long-term strategy for special education;

— ensure meaningful consultation and greater collaboration between education authorities and school leaders in special education planning and delivery, and to address the shortage in special schools and special class placements;

— streamline the process for opening new special classes and provide additional funding and resources for schools opening new special classes;

— invest in recruitment and continuous professional development for teachers and Special Needs Assistants to ensure they are supported to meet the diverse needs of students in special classes, and this must include addressing the root causes of the recruitment and retention crisis in the education and disability sectors; and

— expand the Educational Therapy Support Service, to help build the capacity of school communities to meet student's needs.

I am sharing time with colleagues. I welcome that the senior Minister is joining us now. We were prompted to bring forward this motion after listening to the heartbreaking stories of parents of children with special educational needs who are currently denied a suitable school place. Those parents are hoping against hope and fighting day and night for a suitable school place for their child for September, but this is something they should not have to do. I am very grateful to those parents who shared their stories with us and I welcome a number of them to the Visitors Gallery this evening. Those stories are harrowing. Parents talk about being heartbroken and shattered as they, in many cases, receive rejection after rejection from schools. They talk about the incredible impact an appropriate preschool placement has made and how they fear their child will regress if he or she does not get a suitable place at primary school. Parents fear that because other parents have told them about their own child's experience. It is the same, and perhaps worse, at secondary level.

We know that despite the commitments from the previous Minister, 126 children with a special educational recommendation were left without a school place last September. All too often in the scramble for school places, parents of children with special educational needs are told to readjust their expectations. They may be told to extend their scope and look further away. Is an hour or an hour and a half too far away? That is not right or proper. Our motion specifically calls for places to be provided within a reasonable distance of people's homes. Parents may be told that their child is on a waiting list or that they are being entered into a lottery to see who gets one of the all-too-few local places. No child, and indeed no school leader, should be put in that position. For many people, despite it being a last resort, home tuition is the only option. We know that the number of children with special educational needs who are accessing home tuition has almost doubled in recent years, going from 69 to 135 in the past year alone.

At the root of this is a failure to plan, a failure to prepare, a failure to invest and more than anything a failure to deliver. There has been a failure by successive governments to deliver for children with special educational needs. It is not just Sinn Féin that has identified these failings - they have also been identified by the Ombudsman for Children, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and others. The Ombudsman for Children said that there "is still no comprehensive and coherent plan to ensure every child with special educational needs has a school place locally in a timely manner". The Department's forecasting model is flawed, just as its approach to data collection and collation is flawed. There is no centralised application system. The basic building blocks for a well managed system simply are not there. We are in mid-February and right across the State there are parents scrambling for places for September. At the same time, there are school leaders who want to provide extra places but are told they cannot do so because of departmental bureaucracy. It is a case of "computer says no." Elsewhere, there are school leaders who want to provide extra places but they will not be ready in time for September because, for example, the school build was delayed and the Department will not sanction modular accommodation in the meantime. There are many more examples.

I have no doubt that the Minister will come forward and outline the scale of investment in special education in recent years, and I acknowledge that investment. However, the Minister must acknowledge the shamefully low base it started from due to years of underinvestment. She must also acknowledge the number of children who have to travel too far for a school place, who are on a reduced timetable due to lack of supports, whose school place does not meet their needs and, critically, who are locked out of school completely. This Sinn Féin motion is quite specific. It calls on the Government to ensure every child currently without a suitable school place, and all of those due to start primary or secondary school in September 2025, have access to a suitable school place within a reasonable distance of his or her home. To achieve that, the provision of school places for children with special educational needs must be priority number one for the Minister. It can be done with the right focus and a determination to address the barriers to delivery. The Minister will have my full support and the support of my party, and I am sure others in opposition, to achieve that but the time for broken promises is over. I commend the motion to the House and I look forward to the debate.

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