Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I am wondering why the NCSE is to spend up €100,000, reportedly, not on extra help for schoolchildren or on research but on researching why there is an exceptional increase in the demand for special education. It is quite incredible the council is going to outsource finding that out to a consultant. I will give the Minister some of the reasons now without her wasting the money. The reason for the increase in demand is massively increased awareness of neurodiversity, additional needs, disability, people asserting their rights and parents not being willing to put up with what previous generations had to, namely, having their children just dropping out or staying in school and therefore causing significant harm to themselves and potentially other people. This is not new. I have been campaigning for special education resources since about 2010. People have been looking for this for years.

I am not going to waste too much time on the programme for Government but it is lily-livered and vague on this issue considering what a massive issue this was in all the elections last year. It talks about how we must find teachers and we must have more classrooms. There were no quotas or targets. There was nothing. I have a bunch of letters here from sixth class in Castaheany Educate Together National School in Dublin 15. The school kids are writing about the teacher shortage. They see the impact it is having on them. Hansfield Educate Together Secondary School has a picture asking parents whether they can provide lodgings for teachers. We all know why teachers are going to Australia, Dubai and the UK. It is more profitable for them to do so. They cannot afford to live here.

I will speak about the Dublin 15 task force the Minister mentioned in her introduction. Parents had to go around printing large photographs of their children and putting them on election-size posters in our area prior to the local and general elections. They had to do that because they could not get places for their children. The previous Government decided to set up a task force in this area. The Minister says the task force will report in the next few months. We need school places right now and what has been identified is 104 applications. The Minister mentioned the task force is going to look at the barriers, but she and her Department are the biggest barrier. Schools have agreed to have autism and special education classes but they cannot get the funding from the Minister’s Government. It is the biggest barrier.

There is no need to investigate this any further. I will give an example. Danu Community Special School is the only special school in all of Dublin West. It promised places students for last September, but those kids are still sitting at home because the Minister’s Government has not sanctioned the funds for the buildings that school needs. Why is that school not getting the buildings it needs? A whole class, who were to be taken in last September, is sitting at home. These are children who are autistic and who have intellectual disabilities. Can the Minister imagine how cruel that is? The mothers who have been on to me are at their wits’ end. When will that building happen? Those students will not be in school this year. There is no way that building is going to suddenly appear unless the Minister pulls the finger out. We also need a second special school in Dublin West.

The task force also set up a centralised system, so parents are now being told children are not getting into any of the 13 schools in the centralised system. Did the Minister’s party set up that task force - her party had that Ministry - just to get parents off its back for the general election or did it actually mean it? I ask because it has no budget. It is identifying problems but then it does not have any budget to bring forward the extra spaces and the solutions. If that is not to be a talking shop it needs a budget.

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