Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

A group of 54 parents of children with special needs will be outside the Department of Education at 1 p.m. this Friday to fight for their children's right, which the Government is failing to vindicate, to have a school place with the special education resources and supports they need. It is bad enough to have to fight for the right of one's children to have a school place which the Government is failing to vindicate, but parents have all the additional stresses that relate to fighting for children with special needs. They will now be doing a 24-hour sleep-out around the clock outside the Department of Education next Friday. That is what the Government has forced them to do. Such is their frustration, such is the failure of the Government agencies and Departments that are supposed to vindicate the rights of children to respond to these parents that they have been forced to take this step. It is an absolute disgrace. Even now, the Government should be forestalling the need for those parents to take that action this Friday by guaranteeing their children the supports and school places they need.

The second issue I will raise in the brief time available to me is the people who work providing supports and services for people with special needs or disability in section 39 organisations. It is an absolute disgrace that the people who provide these vital supports and services, simply because they happen to work for a charitable organisation to which the Government has outsourced a public service, are paid less, have worse pay and conditions, do not get pay increases in some cases for years and do not have pay parity with those in the public service. That issue must be addressed as a matter of absolute urgency.

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