Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the review and the review process. I welcome the publication of the report and the comments of the Minister and Minister of State. I have to say the proof of the pudding will be in the eating and I come to this with something of a jaundiced and critical eye. I accept there is evolution in thinking, in processes and in language but it has fundamentally always been obvious what is needed here. It is a matter of recognising that all children are equal and that the State has an obligation to support them to reach their potential, whatever that might look like. We have moved from review to review, to tweaking the system and tweaking the system again. The sum total of all this effort is to delay, deflect and deny children access to the supports they so obviously need. And the point is they so obviously need these supports.

There is a lot in the report that I welcome but I want to make a number of points in the time available to me. I have a concern about enacting and moving on a number of the positive recommendations by following the recommendation that legislation for all schoolchildren come under one Act. This would be a complex move and I fear it would take a very long time.

As to legislation underpinning student support plans, the same should happen with regard to reasonable accommodations. They should be legislated for.

I want to take issue with the fact that some sections of the Act have not commenced. Page 21 of the review states:

Sections 3 to 12 of the Act prescribed how such [individual education] plans were to be developed, the assessments they would entail, how their implementation was to be monitored, the role of the school principal, the parents and special educational needs organiser (SENO), and the appeals mechanisms that would apply to them. The intention in all of this was clearly to fulfil the Act's aims of providing an appropriate education for children with special educational needs but the apparatus as set out was widely regarded as impracticable.

The Minister said the same. Is this the case? Did children with additional educational needs see it as impractical? Did their parents? The review also states:

In addition to the perceived practical difficulties, there were concerns that bureaucratic requirements would place the demands of the plan rather than the needs of the child at the centre of the process. Sections 3 to 12 of the EPSEN Act relating to IEPs were therefore never commenced.

Let us not forget the rights and benefits these sections would bestow on the child and the obligations they would put on the State, such as the right to an educational assessment for all children with additional educational needs, the consequent development of a statutory individual educational plan, the delivery of detailed education services on foot of this plan, and an independent appeals process. The Minister wants us to believe these sections were not commenced because there were concerns that bureaucratic requirements would place the demands of the plan, rather than the needs of the child, at the centre of the process whereas this was about the needs of the child. The Minister must be joking. In my firm opinion, it was only ever about the Minister, the Department and the State itself protecting themselves, just as they are trying to row back on assessments of need. I note the recommendation to review the Disability Act 2005 and legal framework governing assessments of need and I have a serious problem with it. The Government should meet its legal obligations rather than reviewing them.

What makes me wonder further about the review is the fact it states with a straight face that sections were not commenced for fear of creating unnecessary bureaucracy and taking away from the needs of the child but it says nothing about the bureaucracy the Government has created in the National Council for Special Education despite the compelling evidence that shows this bureaucracy is a significant problem. A total of 49% of parents and 38% of staff said their contact with the NCSE was unhelpful or very unhelpful. A total of 25% of parents said their contacts with the NCSE were very unhelpful. This is a significant finding. I do not see anything in the report that points towards a fundamental root-and-branch review of the NCSE and the SENO model. I see them as gatekeepers and this is reflected in parents and staff saying their engagement with them is overwhelmingly unhelpful or very unhelpful. Ultimately, we need to provide supports for children who so obviously need them.

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