Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)

The education of children with special needs is one of the most frustrating and distressing situations for parents in County Kerry. They look on and see potential and achievable progress denied. As one mother said to me, the early years system is broken and the lack of appropriate services will have lifelong impacts on her son. Everywhere we turn we see that services have huge waiting lists, a shortage of staff and a lack of resources. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Healy-Rae brothers are continuing to stand over a system that is broken. Children are being denied their basic right to an education and far too many of them are in Kerry. Specifically, I want to raise the issue of early intervention for preschool children with autism who should get a support teacher and an SNA. Despite four Government-supporting TDs representing the county, I recently learned through a reply to a parliamentary question that Kerry has one of the lowest numbers of early-intervention classes in the Twenty-six Counties. When one adjusts for population size, the outlook is even more bleak. There are just two classes available in the whole of the county and a total of six places for children in the whole year. However, because many children stay on for a second year, the actual number of new spaces is just three or four. In a county with a population of 160,000, this beggars belief. While the situation is dire the length and breadth of the country, there is no doubt that Kerry has been left behind. The Minister of State's own county of Cork has 22 classes. Mallow alone has three early-intervention classes. Tipperary and Wexford have ten and 12 classes, respectively, with equivalent populations while Offaly, whose population is half that of Kerry, has nine classes. To add insult to injury, there are schools with the space and resources available to establish new classes but the Department of education has repeatedly ignored pleas from parents to give their children access to the education they deserve.

I was contacted recently by the parent of a child who is being denied access to the education that he deserves. Despite his profound needs, and the recommendation from a SENO for a special class placement, there is no place in an early-intervention class available to him in the county. His mother tells me that it was proposed to open a third early-intervention class in Kerry in a school in Killarney. The school stepped forward to open it. She was told by the principal that the school had the necessary space, staff and support but the Government refused to sanction it. This is an indictment of the continued failure of the Government to keep its word.

If one compares these statistics with some of the ministerial replies that are on record, a different picture is painted. On 16 October, I received a reply to a parliamentary question that said that early-intervention classes are available in mainstream and special school settings for children aged three to five years with a diagnosis of autism. Does anybody believe that is the case? The Kerry TD and Minister Deputy Normal Foley said in response to a parliamentary question that the Government recognises the importance of early intervention for children with disabilities and ensuring they receive the right services at the right time. She went on to say that under the programme for Government, she and the Government were committed to ensuring that children and families who need early intervention and therapy can access that in a timely way. The key vehicle for change, according to the Minister, is the roadmap for service improvement for disability services.

However, considering that this roadmap was supposedly to be implemented by 2026, does the Minister really believe the three to four places available for that school year are being delivered? It sounds more like lip service.

Research clearly demonstrates that early intervention vastly improves outcomes for children and can negate the need for a special education placement down the line. Ignoring these children until they reach school age is short-sighted and will exacerbate what is already a serious crisis. Will the Government prepare now to ensure extra spaces are available in classes for students in Kerry?

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