David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the review report. I also want to take the opportunity to thank the Minister of State for the work done to provide additional special classes in County Waterford. We had a number of debates in the House over the last number of months and the Minister of State committed to improving services. It has to be said, additional classes were made available. That was a very important development for many parents whose children will benefit from those classes. I thank the Minister of State for his engagement and delivery of those classes.

We still have a long way to go. Unfortunately, there will still be some parents who will not have the appropriate school place for their children. We have to make sure that we are continually improving access to services, putting the capacity into schools, and making sure that we have the type of appropriate school places I know the Minister of State believes every child should have.

There have been several reviews over the last number of years. As my colleague said in his contribution, there has been review after review. The core of what we do has to be equality of access to education and, I would argue, services for each and every child.

At the moment, that is not happening. Every child does not have equal access to a school place and certainly not to services. That can be frustrating for parents who have to battle time and again to access services. Sometimes, it is a school place or it might be an assessment of need, access to a therapy or whatever a child may need. In some cases, it might be all those things. That has a real impact on the child and on the family as well.

The Minister's statement and the review talk about the EPSEN Act and bureaucratic problems in implementing all elements of it. The Minister also has to accept the failure of the State in resourcing disability services. Going back to the 2005 Act that provided a legal right to an assessment of need, the logic of that made sense. Each child would have an assessment that would basically identify the health and educational needs of that child. A plan for that child would then be set out and the Department would have to look at the aggregate needs of all children and provide the services. Of course, that never happened. Rather than acknowledge that failure, I see the Government making the Act itself the scapegoat for Government failure. It is saying the Act is the problem, as it created too much bureaucracy. It did not. It created a legal right that should have been vindicated. That is where we need to get to. It is not pie in the sky or overly aspirational to want all children with disabilities to be able to have appropriate school places and get the appropriate services they need. For far too many children, unfortunately, it is not happening.

See this speech in context