Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for Education and Skills for attending personally to take this Topical Issue. I was very disturbed to read in the media recently an amount of commentary that was largely headed "Diagnosis for Dollars". It referenced a practice in the United States of various professional diagnostics people being used to identify disorders or disabilities in children so that, consequently, the children would be labelled as having limited capacity. Equally, my heart went out to the parents of children with a range of behavioural disorders. These parents often have a difficult time in dealing with a child who may need care and attention that is more than the norm for other children of the same age. In this discussion, we should be careful not to add to the hurt of parents and those working in schools where particular children may be identified as being in need of additional help at various times in their school lives. The chief executive officer of the National Council for Special Education was reported as having commented that parents with more resources could seek a private diagnosis and thereby get access to resources over and above what they might otherwise be entitled to.

The disorders that are being cited are largely behavioural or neuro-behavioural disorders. The reality is that medical science is only gradually broadening our knowledge and understanding of these disorders, how they affect the life of the child and the family, how parents can help the child and how it may impact on the child's education, particularly in the early years.

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Early identification and mechanisms to assist the child may result in significantly better outcomes for him or her. Members may have heard a recent BBC Radio 4 broadcast by the well known British performer, comedian and impersonator, Rory Bremner, in which he discussed the extent to which the ADHD was misunderstood. If left undiagnosed, it can have very serious negative consequences for individuals. However, the use of modern therapies and the provision of structures to assist the child, whether at school or at home, can lead to very positive outcomes.

I ask the Minister to outline his proposals to respond to the review of special educational needs in order that the special educational needs of all children will be dealt with in the best way possible.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for the considered way in which she raised this complex issue. We must deal sensitively with the genuine worries of parents about how their children's needs will be catered for in the education system.

My Department employs approximately 12,500 resource and learning support teachers who are allocated annually to mainstream schools. This is a significant investment, one which increased throughout the difficult period we endured, which is as it should be. Approximately 7,500 of these teachers are allocated annually by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, in response to applications from schools in respect of children with diagnosed conditions, including emotional behaviour disturbance and severe emotional behaviour disturbance. The remaining posts are allocated using the general allocation model.

The Deputy raises the concern that the current model is no longer fit for purpose because it is over-reliant on diagnosis. This was the view adopted by one of my predecessors in the Department, the former Minister, Ruairí Quinn, who requested that the NCSE review the model. The review which has been published found a number of defects in the current model, including the danger that diagnosis is occurring simply for resource allocation purposes. The Deputy alluded to this danger. Other defects identified include the long delay in some cases in accessing diagnostic assessments and differences in accessing resources, which mean that people who have much money can access assessments.

For these reasons, the NCSE recommended changes in the current model. We have acted on this advice and taken steps to address the concerns raised about the current model by developing a new model for allocating teaching supports. Once implemented, this model will remove the need for a diagnosis of disability to ground the allocation of resources and will focus primarily on the educational needs of the relevant cohort of children.

As the Deputy will be aware, we have piloted the new model in 47 schools. In the budget funding was provided to roll out the model nationwide, starting in September 2017. I am optimistic that this change will provide assurance for parents who have been unable to access the diagnostic route that their child will be identified early and have his or her educational needs assessed and that the assignment of resources to schools will be based on educational needs. The allocation will be provided across the school and reflect a more holistic approach to the needs of children. This will mean that children will not have labels attached to them that may not be necessary and are certainly not perfectly connected to the educational needs we are trying to address.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Minister has provided a little clarification. When I was first elected to the Dáil at the end of 1992, I was invited to visit a centre in my constituency which had many children with different levels of intellectual disability who ranged in age from young primary school children to children aged approximately 14 years. In those days many children with intellectual disabilities were grouped together and, as the Minister may recall, experts vigorously disagreed on whether, apart from full-blown cases of the condition, autism was a real diagnosis.

The Minister must be exceptionally careful when it comes to behavioural disorders. All children go through phases of development, strength, growth and difficulty. Where parents experience consistent difficulties with a child, despite their best efforts and good advice from family and friends, it is understandable they may seek a degree of expert advice on how best to influence their child's development and growth in a positive way. We should not lose sight of this.

Dealing with these conditions in school is also a developmental issue. I outlined an experience I had had in 1992, when there was little opportunity to get a proper diagnosis for children on the autism spectrum. The position has obviously changed.

Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy must be brief. She is way over time.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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As Minister for Social Protection in the previous Government, I had a close connection with this issue in that many parents applied for the domiciliary care allowance. The test in dealing with such applications was to ascertain the level of care and attention their child required over and above the normal level of good quality care and attention required. I strongly recommend that the Department of Education and Skills keep this in mind when implementing the changes to which the Minister referred.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I assure the Deputy that there will be no sense in which the value of expert assistance or referrals will be downgraded. These factors will continue to be valued in the assessment. However, we will remove the requirement to have a diagnosis carried out to identify that a child has an educational need and in calculating what that need will be. We will ensure each child is supported. The current system which dates from 1993 takes a rigid input and output approach, with a diagnosis on one side and resources on the other. It does not focus specifically on educational needs and takes a very limited approach. The new model will focus much more on educational need and how schools can best cope with it. Parents will not be advised against obtaining referrals and referrals will be examined. However, they will not be the primary or only basis on which to deal with a child with a special need. While we will remove the requirement to have an assessment made, this should not prevent parents, the National Educational Psychological Service or another entity from taking the view that an assessment would help in an individual case.