Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

Every child with additional needs has a constitutional right to education. That is something my colleague Deputy Cullinane and I raised with the Minister of State at the start of February this year. It is not simply a right to education but to a suitable and appropriate school place. Families are doing everything in their power, but they are being failed by this Government. In Dungarvan and Waterford, it took months of campaigning, public protest, sleep-outs and the threat of legal action before the Government moved to act. Parents and guardians had to fight tooth and nail just to be heard. Not every parent has the capacity to take on the State. Many are exhausted, dispirited and worn down. The Government is taking advantage of that. That is not acceptable and I am not going to stand for it.

This summer, there were at least 260 children without any school place at all and while some have since been offered a place, in many cases there is no room. Children are being put into corners, cupboards and corridors. In other cases, transport has not been provided, which means children cannot even attend the hard-fought place their parents secured after much campaigning.

Across the State, parents and guardians have been forced to campaign, protest and litigate just to secure what should be guaranteed, their child's basic right. Educators and school leaders too are doing everything they can to vindicate that right, but they are being left without the resources they urgently need and the political will that is needed to resolve this crisis.

This is part of a litany of failure where children are routinely denied services, treatments, adequate care and their rights by the State in everything from healthcare to social care, education and housing, and where parents must fight the Government rather than being supported to secure what should be automatic. This was foreseeable and it is preventable. It is a direct result of a failure to plan. Let us not see the same failure from the Government next year. The Government must plan now. That is why we are bringing forward this motion: to demand transparency on the numbers and a real plan for delivery of special education places, and investment in SNAs and SETs to meet demand.

The time for excuses is over. The Minister must publish the figures, deliver the places, resource schools properly and end this crisis once and for all. Let us not see a repeat of this next year.

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