Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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I recently had the pleasure of visiting Le Chéile National School in Limerick. During the visit, I met with senior staff at the school who highlighted a number of major concerns regarding the absence of supports being made available to the children of the school. It is not a small school. It was built as part of the Limerick regeneration programme. It serves families from Southill and surrounding areas of Limerick and has an enrolment of 186 children aged between three and 12 years. The area that the school serves is, according to the Pobal deprivation index, the second most disadvantaged area in the entire State, with the label of “extremely disadvantaged” attached.

In my discussions with senior staff, they advised that they estimate from in-school assessments that 72% of the children have at least one additional need, be that educational, sensory, emotional, environmental, developmental or behavioural. Almost three in every four children attending the school have an additional need. I will repeat that statistic in the case the Minister of State thinks she misheard me - 72% of the children have at least one additional need, which is staggering. The staff have further advised that 38% of the pupils have two or more additional needs.

In detailing these figures, the staff members advised that for at least two years they have been making repeated pleas to the Department of Education but have received no support and or even an acknowledgment of the need for such supports. As far back as 2022, Le Chéile National School had sent emails to the Department of Education highlighting the urgent needs of these kids. During the back and forth of these emails, the staff were advised to contact the office of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and then to contact the office of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. During one of the email conversations, the school was advised to contact the HSE, which has the responsibility to provide these services. The response from the HSE was perhaps the worst received. It advised that it is up to the parents of the children to seek appointments with local services when those local services have waiting times of two to three years for an initial appointment, not even for a diagnosis.

A school located in the second-most deprived area of the State is seeking resources to improve the lives of its pupils and give them the best chance of an education, but is being passed from pillar to post in the quest for resources and told that the onus is on the parents of the children to seek appointments. The State is clearly failing these children. The school has some of the most incredible teachers, who are doing the best for these children, but the school is at an impasse. It has resorted to using school funds to have assessments done privately to help families who have reached crisis point.

What the school wants is support. What these children need is a wraparound level of support. What they are getting from multiple agencies and Departments, including the Department of Education, is a refusal to assist. One email response that the school received read: “Any funding for health services would have to be funded through the HSE who we don’t think will agree to the provision of these services.” The Department of Education has a duty of care to these children, a duty that I suggest is not being honoured. The Department of Education has numerous programmes to assist schools with high needs in Dublin but these have not been rolled out to other areas of the State. The 2016 census showed that seven out of the top ten most deprived areas of the State are in Limerick, so why are these programmes not being run outside of Dublin? Why are the supports not available to needy schools in Limerick? There is an immediate need for the school inclusion model to be rolled out to Le Chéile National School but when the school asked about this, the response it received stated: “Unless the Department of Education expand their School Inclusion Model Pilot, the resources you seek aren’t currently available as the HSE aren’t funding any posts to schools in Band 1”.

We know that education is the key to opening doors and lifting people out of poverty and deprivation, yet these children are being denied the tools they need because of their address. Children from the second-most disadvantaged area in the State are being denied the tools they need for success because of their postcode. I am asking the Minister of State and her Department to meet with senior staff at Le Chéile National School and then follow up and assist them in their need for additional supports. Will the Minister of State ensure that these children are given the tools they need to be best positioned to complete their educational journey?

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this important topic. It is important to note at the outset that speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy services for children with disabilities predominantly fall under the auspices of the Minister for children while the Minister for Health retains oversight of primary care services and mental health support, which also falls under the remit of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. Following today’s Topical Issue matter, I will consult all three Ministers and bring this matter to their attention, particularly on the lack of therapeutic supports, which the Deputy mentioned in his contribution.

The Department of Education is deeply committed to ensuring that every child in Ireland receives the education and support they need to thrive, regardless of their background or circumstances. It is with this commitment in mind that the Department has embarked on a significant expansion of the DEIS programme, and the Deputy mentioned that Le Chéile National School is within the DEIS category. In March 2022, the Minister, Deputy Foley, announced a major expansion of DEIS. An additional €32 million investment in the programme from 2023 increased the Department’s overall spend on the DEIS programme to over €180 million. Approximately 260,000 students, or one in four of all students, are now supported in this programme.

Le Chéile National School, serving the children of the Galvone and Southill area of Limerick, has been categorised under urban band 1 within the DEIS programme. Urban band 1 schools receive the most comprehensive support under the DEIS programme in recognition of having the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage. The literacy and numeracy supports within the DEIS programme are integral to its aim of reducing educational disadvantage. As an urban 1 school, it has priority access to reading recovery, maths recovery, first steps and ready, set, go maths. Moreover, the school has access to the home school community liaison services and the school completion programme, which share the same national outcomes of improved attendance, improved participation and improved retention.

Le Chéile National School receives additional time allocation from the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, and a psychologist is assigned to the school. It has also benefited from a range of universal supports across both DEIS and non-DEIS schools aimed at fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment.

Le Chéile National School, alongside all primary schools in Ireland, is part of the free primary schoolbooks scheme. This initiative has significantly relieved families of the costs of purchasing schoolbooks, including workbooks and copybooks. Schools have the flexibility to extend the benefits of this scheme to cover some classroom resources as well, thereby enhancing the learning environment for all pupils.

On special education, additional support is available through the special education teaching allocation for primary schools, which provides a single unified allocation for SEN teaching needs to schools based on each school’s educational profile and it also encompasses the English as an additional language support. In response to fluctuations in enrolments, the Department has supplemented this with temporary special education and additional language support.

Budget 2024 represents a significant step forward in our journey towards an inclusive, high-quality education system. Among other measures, the Minister, Deputy Foley, has allocated €5 million for additional educational welfare officer posts and supports for the alternative education assessment and registration service. This funding will enhance our capacity to support the most educationally disadvantaged children to ensure every child has access to quality education, regardless of their background.

Regarding Le Chéile National School, I am aware the Deputy's request is not specifically around education, but there are eight special education teachers in that school and nine SNAs as well.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for her response, but she has not given any comfort to the children, parents or school staff who are listening to this. I know a few of them will be tuning in. The Minister of State referenced that three Departments are responsible for the services I am talking about, but the problem is they do not seem to be co-ordinating and Le Chéile National School has not got the resources it not just needs, but is entitled to.

This week the school were visited by members of the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, and the National Educational Psychological Service which can provide a specific additional need, but the school needs a multidisciplinary team. The school is in a challenging area with lots of complex issues, such as the scourge of addiction, be that to alcohol, drugs or gambling. It has already invested its own resources into private assessments for some of the kids, which it should not have to do. I wish to acknowledge and highlight the work the school has undertaken to date. It has identified four key areas that it needs to address over the next three years but it cannot deal with them alone. To be clear, this is not the absence of one support or another, but the absence of all additional support. Why does the Minister of State think the school has advised it has no speech and language support, no occupational therapy support, no physiotherapy support, no music or art therapy, no literacy or numeracy support, no access to counselling services and no assessment of need support? I feel sorry for the kids and I feel sorry for their teachers. How can a teacher be expected to teach kids with additional needs when those needs are not being catered for? How can that educator face that challenge every day without feeling despondent? Some are burnt out and feel abandoned. The school has a plan but it needs the Minister of State's support and that of the other Departments. It wants to see the needs of all their vulnerable and at-risk children fully assessed. It wants a multidisciplinary team working with those children. It wants a family support team created to support the families of these children. The school wants to give these children a chance in life. I want the Department of Education to step up and act. The least that can be done is to put a pilot scheme into the school to deal with the issues I have raised. The Minister of State needs to help these schools and help these kids. We need a response that will give some comfort to the teachers there.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I appreciate his concern for the school. As I mentioned, Le Chéile National School is in the DEIS urban band 1. It is one of Limerick's newest primary schools. It opened on 1 September 2015. It has an assigned psychologist and I understand from my conversations within the Department the NCSE has visited the school on a number of occasions. Both a SENO and an adviser visited in November 2023 as part of an SNA review and these visits were used as an opportunity to look at all the school's needs and make its staff aware of NCSE training. It received an increase in SNAs on foot of that. The adviser will be following up on her visit to organise staff training and to support with managing behaviour and trauma as well. The NCSE is also offering the school training focused on its autism, and emotional behaviour difficulty classes as well. The Deputy mentioned correctly that the team manager will be talking to the school this week regarding its training needs and it will be receiving a high level of support from the NCSE over the coming months. Again, I will speak to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, about the physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language supports. I will let her know the Deputy raised this in the Dáil and we will see what can be done on that. The Deputy also mentioned counselling, which falls within the remit of the Minister, Deputy Foley. There was €5 million put into a pilot programme in budget 2023 on counselling and mental health supports and I understand the DEIS schools are included in that pilot. There is also the Department's well-being policy, which was there before the pilot. The feedback and evaluation from the pilot is forthcoming.