George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)

People feel the lack of school places means that places are being just thrown at them. These are not my words; these are the words of the manager of the Collective Sensory Group, Shona King, who works closely with families and children in this area.

Children need appropriate places but that is certainly not always the case. Often, we see children in autism classes when, in fact, this is a wholly inappropriate setting for them. A child can have autism and an intellectual disability and, in many instances, these children require places in special needs classes. They also need appropriate places without needing to spend an inordinate amount of time getting to and from their schools. What is needed for these children is person-centred access. That is the key to everything – person-centred where a child may have autism and an intellectual disability. It is not just about access to a place, which we all know is hugely difficult to secure anyway; it is also about the quality of life for students – the children.

Many children have complex medical needs. Many children have an intellectual disability. Yet, once we have placed them in a class, no matter what their needs, we declare that we have met those needs even though they may not be in an environment that is conducive to their well-being.

In County Wexford, we have just two special needs schools, namely, St. Patrick’s Special School in Enniscorthy and Our Lady of Fatima School in Wexford town. Despite the wonderful efforts of the principals of these schools, Lee Rogers in St. Patrick’s Special School in Enniscorthy and Glenda McKeown in Our Lady of Fatima School in Wexford town, these schools are under huge pressure and are hugely oversubscribed, with little or no capacity to increase. In Our Lady of Fatima School, we have children with mild to moderate special needs and at St. Patrick’s school in Enniscorthy, we have children with moderate to profound needs. These are the only two special needs schools serving a county with a population of 165,000.

Wexford is lucky to have many autism units in mainstream schools. However, as I said, many of the children who are placed in classes in these mainstream schools are in inappropriate settings and their education is far from person-centred.

The issue of school refusal is also at an all-time high in mainstream schools. Once again, students of varying abilities and needs are in inappropriate settings in mainstream schools and, as a result, refusal is a huge problem. I spoke to a therapist this week who told me that in one second level school alone in Wexford, she is dealing with 16 pupils who are school refusers. In fact, they are not refusing to go to school. Rather, they just cannot go to school because their needs are not being met. These are highly intelligent, high-functioning children who can offer a lot to this country, yet we fail them time and again through the lack of provision of appropriate education.

Our country, as the Minister knows, has gone through a lot in recent decades. We have come from economic bankruptcy to a flourishing economy with billions in reserve. We have the resources to, at long last, cherish all the children of the nation equally. If we do nothing else in this House, please, let us give all our children the opportunity they so richly deserve.

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