Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)

My understanding is that children with mild learning disabilities will not be able to enrol in any special schools under this programme because they will not have the sign-off, approval or letter of eligibility from the NCSE. The plan is for all of those children to go to their local mainstream school. I absolutely agree that no child should have to travel for two hours to get to their special school or to get education. It is absolutely not acceptable. Every child should be able to be educated within the local community. We should increase the capacity of the special schools, rather than just moving children from a special school into a mainstream school and then putting other children into the special school. It is more of a displacement than an inclusion process. I do not know what level of conversation or consultation has been done with the mainstream schools. I imagine it would be very difficult mainstream schools to get the level of support needed to assist and help these children. These children will not be going into any of the autistic spectrum disorder, ASD, units or anything like that. They will be going straight into mainstream classes, but they will need supports. We have not seen in the policy or heard in any of the discussions how we are going to make sure those secondary schools have the actual supports they need. How are we going to make sure they have enough places? I am still dealing with children who do not have a school place for the coming September. Our educational welfare officer has disappeared and will not be back until September. There are children who still do not have a place in a mainstream school in the north Wicklow area for September. The mainstream schools in our area do not have capacity. I do not know where these children are going to go. Wherever they go, we need to make sure they have the supports they require. I ask the Minister of State to revise this and meet some of the schools.

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