Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for attending to address the issue of primary school places for children diagnosed with autism, in particular in Kildare South, which is my constituency. I have received many queries from distraught parents who are trying to acquire the best possible education and supports for children with autism at primary and secondary levels. Those in the latter face State exams and must have access to the necessary supports, but I will use this short time to discuss primary education.

Primary schools are getting holidays this week and pupils are looking forward to summer. Many parents are preparing their young children to attend primary school in September, a significant milestone in anyone's life. The Minister supports the notion that every child deserves access to a full education, an equal chance to attend school at the appropriate age and within reasonable reach of his or her home, and to be educated in the manner most suitable to him or her.

South Kildare has been frustrated by a lack of resources for primary schoolchildren with autism. In recent weeks, four parents have approached my constituency office to report that their children, each of whom is well above schoolgoing age, cannot get places in the county, let alone near their homes or in the schools attended by their siblings. One case went through section 29 and the school made it clear that it would happily accommodate the child by opening another classroom were funding provided, but this was turned down. A sibling with autism is attending the same school and doing well.

I welcome the initiative in Kildare-Wicklow of the autism register. As an education professional, I believe we must stop simply fighting fires. The recent census had no way of recording whether a child had special needs, such as autism. That did not bode well in terms of planning ahead.

The situation faced by the families in question is not being resolved. Section 2 of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004, EPSEN, required that a child with special educational needs should be educated in an inclusive environment with children who did not have such needs unless the nature or degree of the child's needs were such that to do so would be inconsistent with his or best interests and the effective provision of education for the other children. Twelve years on and with a greater knowledge of what is required in schools for all children, including those with autistic spectrum disorders, ASDs, any progress has been whittled away, there has been no reduction in class sizes, there has been yo-yoing on the entitlement to special needs assistants, SNAs, and there has been no year-on-year increase in the number of ASD classes when the demand obviously exceeds the supply. There are fewer than 20 ASD classes at primary level in south Kildare. Each can accommodate six children, amounting to 120 across the constituency. The Department has not sanctioned new classes for that part of the country for the coming school year, resulting in only those places vacated by children, usually in moving to secondary level, becoming available. The Minister has referred to a range of placement options and supports for schools that have enrolled pupils with ASD, but what of the options for children who cannot enroll? Must they wait until next year? Will there be places then? How long should a child wait before a place becomes available?

The proposed national autism registry is intended to highlight the shortfall in education and health services for children with ASD. The pilot phase has been launched in Kildare-west Wicklow and I encourage parents to register, as it is essential for the advanced planning of resources that accurate information, including medical and educational histories, be gathered on each child from diagnosis through development. I hope the register helps to provide a symbiotic relationship between health and education in terms of children with autism.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It would have been helpful had she flagged that it concerned south Kildare, as I do not have specific information on that area.

Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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Okay.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I will try to give the Deputy what information I have. It presents a picture that is better than the one she has painted. Therefore, I would like to see the south Kildare data.

Overall, there are 14,000 students with ASD in the school system, of whom some 63% are educated in mainstream classes, 23% in special classes in mainstream primary and post-primary schools and 14% in special schools.

The position on special classes, an issue the Deputy raised in particular, is that the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, recently published a list of special classes for the coming 2016-17 school year. In total, 1,153 special classes will be available. This represents an increase of over 100% on the number of special classes available in 2001. There will have been 605 additional special classes provided, many of them for students with ASD. The number of ASD classes at primary level in the 2016-17 school year will be 652, which represents a 15% increase approximately on the 2015-16 figure. In one year there has been a 15% increase in the number of classes. Therefore, there is substantial expansion occurring.

There should be no child with special educational needs who cannot find a school place because the NCSE will assess the needs of each child with special educational needs. Many are accommodated in mainstream classes, but in each case the child will be assigned the required resource teaching and SNA supports in order that he or she can participate in class. As I stated, there is an increasing trend towards the provision of special classes. There has been growth of 100% in the space of just five years. What I have outlined represents growth of over 20% per year. As this represents substantial expansion, I would be disturbed to think the picture was different in south Kildare. The rights I have described are automatic and there have been no constraints. The schedule from which these resources are applied was reduced at the height of the recession in 2012, but the number of resource teachers in the system has been increased. The number of SNAs has increased by almost 22%, while the number of resource teachers has expanded by 9% in just one year. Therefore, it is growing very rapidly. Close to €1.5 billion of our budget is devoted specifically to special education.

The EPSEN Act is the gold standard for the personal education plan for each child and we are moving towards it. Each school is expected to have a personal plan for each child. It is a legal requirement, but until we have rolled out the infrastructure to underpin it, it will be hard to trigger the Act, as it stands. However, it is certainly the target we are trying to reach.

I will undertake to obtain more data, specifically for County Kildare.

Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for outlining the improvements made. I acknowledge the excellent work taking place in the special unit in Scoil na Naomh Uilig in Newbridge and the Educate Together school in Kildare town. While the figures the Minister gives are comforting in general, it does nothing to address the four specific sets of circumstances I have outlined. I would be very happy to forward the details directly to the Department. I am absolutely sure there are no places for the children in question within County Kildare. One family has been offered a place in Dublin, but, as the Minister can appreciate, it is very difficult to take up this offer if there are other children in the family. In the case in question, a sibling must travel to school ten miles from the family home in Newbridge. It is difficult to cater for a child with autism in such circumstances.

As we must acknowledge, a diagnosis of autism should result in a child being provided with the required services. In some cases, however, it is actually shutting a child out from services. There is a very high rate of mental health issues among those with autism because there is an increased risk of anxiety disorders, mood disorders and ADD. This is not to mention the mental health issues and stress that can arise among parents and siblings. A lack of intervention without a diagnosis of a condition compounds the problem.

There are many cases in addition to the four I have mentioned in which families are having difficulty in dealing with a diagnosis. It is very difficult for parents to face a future for their child that they had not imagined. Sometimes cases are not presented until it is too late and behaviours can be entrenched. Already parents of children with autism must fight for their children every step of the way. A place in a school in the child's own environment must be a basic requirement and not be required only after waiting to see what the new register presents. I would be very happy to forward details the four cases mentioned to the Minister who I appreciate will come back to me with the figures for south Kildare.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I would welcome receiving the details. There is an entitlement to appeal any decision. Where parents have applied to a school for a place for their child and deem the NCSE's specification of so many hours of additional resource teaching or a special class in due course to be unsatisfactory, the decision can be appealed. There is such a process in place.

It is, undoubtedly, the case that although roughly 100 additional classes are being opened every year, there is a requirement for six children or at least the prospect that this number will be reached to make a class sustainable. If only one child was to be identified this year, the school would have to be able to show there was the prospect of forming a sustainable class. As I stated, 100 additional classes are opened every year. In the past four years 600 have been approved. There has been significant expansion of resources in this area. I can assure the Deputy that we will examine the cases she has outlined and ensure this expanding area is properly dealt with. We have undertaken a review to ensure the investment in resource teachers and SNAs is having the best possible impact on the children involved. I hope the review will inform future policy.