Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to an issue I raised with the Taoiseach yesterday, namely, the crisis in special education. Last Friday, I joined a group of 50 parents, children and family members who had to resort to a 24-hour sleep-out in front of the Department of Education in Dublin in order to highlight the crisis they are experiencing. I heard harrowing stories of experiences from desperate parents who are frustrated and in despair at the battle they had on behalf of their children. One mother told me of a long waiting list to achieve an assessment of need for her three-year-old daughter. A grandmother told me about her daughter's battle to get a place in a special school for her son who is six years old. A march will take place in Cork city this weekend to protest at the same issue because this is a nationwide crisis.

We in Labour offer our full support and solidarity, as I know we all do, to those families in these situations. Securing a diagnosis through the public system for children takes years. Even achieving a diagnosis is no longer the answer it once was because access to therapies, the necessary treatments and school places is so difficult.

Yesterday, I asked the Taoiseach how he would ensure that every child who needs a school place or therapy will have access to that. I asked when the 14,000 children now waiting for an assessment of need will be seen. In response, he said, "We are working to see if we can ensure places for children next September", which is not exactly a wrought iron guarantee.

I would like to give the Taoiseach the opportunity today to say something more substantive on this because every year we hear these watery commitments. When the school year draws to a close, every year parents are left scrambling because there are no places for their precious children. A child's right to education is protected by the Constitution, but at least 118 children with additional needs have not received an offer of a school place anywhere this year. We know many more have had to take up inappropriate places or be bussed out of their communities because there is nowhere local to go.

The Journal reports that 1,274 children were moved to reduced school days in the past school year. Of that group, more than 80% of primary school pupils had special educational needs. Families need to hear from the Taoiseach how the Government will achieve access to places for their children come this September and, in particular, to reassure them that there will be enough staff in place to meet the level of need.

Yesterday, my colleague, Deputy Eoghan Kenny, asked the Taoiseach whether the Department of Education had a recruitment freeze on special needs assistants, SNAs. We have received multiple reports indicating that this is the case. School principals have been informed that they cannot have an SNA sanctioned for their schools because it seems the Department has outlined that new SNA positions will not be filled until September at the earliest. One school we know of has been refused a second special educational needs room, despite having a classroom lying empty, and the principal suspects it is because the Department does not want to pay for staff. Is there a de facto recruitment freeze on SNAs? If not, how can the Department justify delays and refusals? I again ask the Taoiseach when every child will have access to the school places and therapies they need.

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