Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, and congratulate them on their appointments. The area of special educational needs and disability involves so much frustration, worry and stress and unnecessary daily hardship for families, as well as so much discontinuity and inconsistency of care and rehabilitation, that it is difficult to know where to focus. As I said in an earlier contribution today on mental health, it is imperative for the Minister to engage intensively with the key stakeholders here, who are the families at the centre of the crisis and the clinicians and the teaching staff supporting them. These staff members are often under enormous and unsustainable stress in overstretched services.

I spoke to a parent of an autistic child last night about the key challenges he sees within services. His first response was the lack of forward planning. This man and his wife, who live in Youghal, feel very fortunate that their son, who is nonverbal, has been offered a place in a special class in their local primary school. There are six children in the class supported by two special needs assistants and a teacher. The school is near where they live and the boy's parents and siblings can drop in briefly to soothe him in times of emotional or sensory overwhelm. Some of the children in the school will have integration time in the mainstream school that the autism class is part of, and there is reverse integration in the autism class for pupils of the mainstream school. The family have experienced great relief and peace of mind as a result of this special school placement and they are deeply appreciative of the consistent support and attunement of staff to their son's needs. They are also keenly aware, however, that other families are having to travel outside their communities for this basic provision.

Overall, the experience of primary education is going well for this family. However, the lead-up to being granted that school place was a time of major trepidation as it was far from guaranteed due to the level of need out there.

Looking ahead to secondary school options, the picture is far more uncertain and anxiety-provoking for this family. The two nearest suitable placements would be in Dungarvan or Carrigtohill. Both involve significant travel time and disconnection of that boy from his local community. As things stand, both these schools are oversubscribed, so other options the family may have to consider would be as far away as Waterford city or Rochestown in Cork. The additional travel time with bus transfers would involve chronic stress loaded upon so many other challenges for this boy and his parents, and we all know that transitions from primary to secondary school can be difficult in the best of circumstances.

This family's experience of assessment and therapies for their son has been sorely lacking. They had to pursue a private autism assessment at significant financial cost. They saw their son benefit from six sessions of occupational therapy within primary care services, only for his case to be referred into the abyss of the local children's disability network team waiting lists. They have had no therapies through the CDNT since that referral, which was exactly two years ago.

It is really important to say at this point that any analysis of the failings in disability services needs to acknowledge that there are huge issues of burnout and low morale among staff and, consequently, poor retention of staff. They are often working in services that have been hollowed out in respect of staff provision and are dealing with unmanageable waiting lists. When parliamentary questions are piling in about these waiting lists, the stress of senior managers is being passed on to them and many are leaving services despite being passionate about their work. This crisis of morale within a broader disability service crisis requires urgent attention from HSE management.

I really encourage the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, to engage with clinicians who are leaving CDNTs to get their perspective on the problems within services that have escalated since the roll-out of the progressing disability services programme. I also encourage him to engage on an ongoing basis with SNAs, teachers and principals as much as he engages with senior management of services.

The man I spoke to last night is part of a group of parents in Youghal who have started a campaign for the creation of more specialised second level autism classes in their locality. They are having to devote considerable energy to engaging with public representatives and navigating a complex bureaucratic system for a basic educational provision to meet their children's needs. For some of these parents, the window of time they have before their child requires a post-primary place will be short. As is the case in so many parts of our society and public services, we have economic prosperity like never before but we are not getting the basics right. In the area of disability and special educational needs, the consequences of not getting the basics right can chain-react through a person's development and can be cumulatively devastating for families.

The story of the family I have outlined is not an isolated case and, in fact, they consider themselves much more fortunate than some other parents of children with special needs. These families are at the mercy of a disjointed patchwork of a support system for young people with special needs. As immense as these problems are, we must not be given over to a counsel of despair which will lead to further fragmentation and privatisation of services. The crisis in special educational needs and disability service provision is resolvable through reform that is driven by meaningful and sustained engagement with the families and the front-line staff who are at its epicentre. The issues also demand much greater financial investment in special school provision and clinical staff.

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