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

The chilling footage and grim images of children killed and wounded in Gaza shared by Dr. Morgan McMonagle on last night's "Prime Time" will stay with anyone who saw them for a very long time. I commend Dr. McMonagle on sharing those images and that chilling footage with us.

I will ask the Taoiseach about an issue affecting children and young people here in Ireland, the crisis in special education. Equality in Education, a group of parents who cannot access suitable school places for their children, will stage a second overnight sleep-out tonight in protest at the ways in which the State has failed their families. A few weeks ago, these parents slept outside the Department of Education on Marlborough Street. Today, on World Autism Day, they will bring their protest to our door here at Leinster House.

Following its initial protest, the group met with the Minister, Deputy McEntee, the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and the National Council for Special Education. I acknowledge that everyone in Government and across this House wants to see a school place offered to every child with additional needs in September. However, parents remain deeply frustrated because the Government appears incapable of guaranteeing that such a place will be provided. The last time I raised this issue, the Taoiseach told me the Government would do all it could to work towards providing a place for every child but the NCSE does not even know how many children are without a school place or how many places will be needed. It is therefore understandable that parents are frustrated.

Childhood is short and the consequences of receiving inappropriate schooling or no schooling are very significant for a child. Children who are being failed today do not have the luxury of time yet the Government is slow to even get to grips with the scale of failure. Every day, all of us, including myself, hear from parents who are at the end of their tether. I read the moving words of one such parent in today's Irish Independent. Chrissie Russell is the mother of Finn. She wrote about the rage she feels at the ways in which her autistic son has been failed. She wrote that "the Rage isn’t helpful, but I suspect I cling to it in preference to The Fear, which tearfully crops up on a regular basis when I think about the future." Sadly, her feelings are warranted because so many children cannot get a diagnosis, cannot access a school place or therapies and are not supported at the later stage of the transition from primary to secondary school. Many young adults with additional needs fall off the radar completely. Where is the wraparound support? Another parent told me that all she wants is a fair shot for her son.

As legislators, our job is to act. Parents sleeping out tonight do not want platitudes. They want action and to see that the issue is being taken seriously. The time has come for the Department of the Taoiseach to get involved and for a whole-of-government approach to be taken, a co-ordinated approach that would ensure that the Department of Education and NCSE have the information they need to enable them to carry out the planning needed for every child to get a school place this September. Children with additional needs and their parents are asking when they will see their right to education vindicated.

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