Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy O'Rourke on bringing forward this motion this evening. Like every other Deputy in this House, I have been inundated with people and families who face a terrible situation. They have children who need a special class or accommodation but cannot get it anywhere. Everywhere I go across the whole west of Ireland, Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal, I come across children who are travelling from one end of the country to the other.

Children are going from County Cavan to County Leitrim and from County Leitrim to County Sligo. They are travelling 70 km or 80 km to get an appropriate school place. This criss-crossing throughout the country because they cannot anywhere near them is something that drives people mad.

The Minister mentioned that she knows and has experience of these families. I am sure she has. I do not doubt her sincerity but I have to doubt her commitment. She and her colleagues have been 14 years in government. Most of these children were not born then, and she has been in government that long, yet we are in this diabolical situation. She has to step up to the mark and ensure that these places are provided. At the end of the day, families who have a child with special needs who needs special education have a huge burden to carry. We all know and understand that. The last thing they need is to have to fight for everything, yet that is their experience. Their experience of this State is that it is one where they have to fight every day of their life. They get up in the morning and they have to fight to get an assessment of needs to find out what is wrong with their child and to get appropriate accommodation, whether it is in school, the HSE or whatever. Everything they do is a battle. It is battle after battle after battle. Is that the kind of State we should be proud of? I do not think so. After 14 years in government, that is the kind of State that has been created. The Government needs to cop on and recognise that we cannot go on the way we have. We have to recognise that these children are a reflection of the whole society we live in. If we cannot look after the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, then who can we look after?

I appreciate that the Minister said, although words are cheap and are very cheap in this place, she would do something about this and that she is committed to it. We bloody well need to see it because those families out there cannot go on like this for any longer. The children in this State deserve to get fair play. That is all they are asking for and not to have to get up every morning and battle and fight for what they are entitled to.

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