Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State. I am not too sure when we had the initial debate on this subject but I believe it was over a year ago. However, I deeply regret that little has changed in my county of Carlow in that time. It looks as if the planned autism units will not be up and running in Carlow this September. That will be another September and another school year gone even though there is an active parents' association in Carlow and despite its best efforts. I acknowledge the Department of Education and Science has made efforts but it took the wrong track initially with one school which it tried to encourage to take one of the autism units. The school was not in a position to take it because it needed major refurbishment and building works. The infrastructure was not in place in the school and the staff made that clear to the Department which did not listen and pursued the issue with the school for a number of months thus, unfortunately, wasting many valuable months in the process. That is disgraceful.

The Department must have a strategy. The carrot and stick approach whereby the Department encourages schools by saying that if they take an autism unit, the Department will fast track any building works planned for the school unfortunately does not necessarily work. It is not just a question of getting an autism unit for a school; there are considerable implications subsequently. Bringing children with autism on to a building site, which invariably most schools in the middle of extensions are, is not recommended. The Minister might check that with his experts. Children with autism need specialised care and a stable, familiar surrounding. The last thing one should do is bring them on to a building site.

I am involved in the Oireachtas Joint Houses Friends of Science group to which Luke O'Neill from Trinity College gave a talk in which he highlighted the lack of take up of the MMR injection and the implications of that. Parents have a real concern about the link between the MMR injection and autism. The person who originally spoke about that link has since been discredited. A link between that person and a legal firm working for another agency has been proved. How many children have taken up that injection this year compared to previous years? I am aware that to avoid an epidemic, whether of measles, mumps or otherwise, a 90% vaccination rate is required. The danger is that if children do not get the injection, it might go below that threshold which could have severe implications.

It is important parents are given as much information as possible to help them make up their minds whether they want their children to have the injection when they reach 18 months or so. Parents were put off the idea initially but now that the person who spoke about that link has been discredited, there is an onus on the Department of Health and Children to relaunch that campaign and make parents aware of all the facts. It is a difficult decision for parents to make. If they vaccinate their child and he or she develops autism subsequently, they will always wonder whether it was because of the injection. If they do not vaccinate their child and he or she dies from measles, they will be in an awful predicament. As far as I am aware, autism only shows up around the same time as a child gets the injection, so it is unfair to assume a link between both. The Department of Health and Children has a considerable role in this area.

I am dismayed by reports lately that the Department of Education and Science has plans for specialised education with a one glove fits all mentality whereby every school with 150 children will get special needs assistance. The INTO is also unhappy with these plans because it means the larger schools might lose out on extra help. In fact, smaller schools, which might not necessarily need the help, will get additional assistance.

The Minister made an announcement at Easter about the appointment of 350 new special needs teachers for schools, which is good news. However, the problem is that he did not indicate from where they will come. Based on past experience, these teachers will be taken out of the existing pool of teachers. In other areas, when extra personnel are appointed, that is what happens but in teaching, it means in effect redeploying existing personnel.

I have little confidence in the Department of Education and Science planning ahead. One has four years' notice that a child will be going to school. If every Department or company had four years' advance notice, they would more than likely be able to cater for whatever turned up. The Department of Education and Science, however, has got it totally wrong. For example, in the late 1980s, too many teachers qualified and there were not enough jobs for them. By the time I qualified in 1995, however, too few were doing so. Afterwards, the authorities came along and appointed a great many resource teachers. While that was a welcome step, the problem was that they came out of the classrooms. Unfortunately, there were not enough qualified people to replace them there. That is why there are now 2,000 unqualified teachers in primary schools alone. That is surely unsatisfactory and certainly does not benefit any of the children involved.

The Department of Education and Science must rely on there being an equal and opposite reaction to every action. If it appoints extra teachers and removes them from the mainstream, it must ensure that there are teachers to replace them. That is common sense. If one were going to the doctor's surgery tomorrow and he was out sick and had been replaced by someone who was not a doctor and had not gone to college or trained, but was suddenly substituting, one would not have confidence in that person. Yet that is happening in primary schools every day of the week.

I am sure that there are excellent teachers who are not fully qualified, but there should be more conversion courses. There are a great many BA graduates with higher diplomas who would love to do the conversion course for primary teaching but are not allowed to do so. The numbers were cut back this year, as I highlighted in the House. The Department is full of contradictions in that area.

In the Carlow case, there has been no progress in a year and a half and I am not sure of the solution. We have heard all about the extra resources and funding, but the reality is that the dedicated autism units have not materialised on the ground, as Senator Scanlon admitted regarding Sligo. In Carlow, it was proposed at one stage that parents travel with their children every day to Goresbridge in Kilkenny. A round trip of 50 miles every day would be totally daft. The planning section of the Department of Education and Science responsible for both building and general planning must anticipate events.

It is regrettable that so little has happened as a result of the Jamie Sinnott case. We had thought that there would be great strides in that area. I plead with the Minister that the building unit in the Department of Education and Science in Tullamore not use the carrot and stick approach with schools. If they are entitled to an extension or building, they should be given it. The two things should not be coupled together because that amounts to a form of blackmail. I hear from teachers that it is going on around the country.

The sooner we get these centres up and running, the better for the children and parents involved. A child is only in primary school for eight years and one year out of eight is a long time. In the Carlow case, two years have been wasted — almost a quarter of the children's primary school education — during which time they will not have the proper resources. That is definitely a scandal in this day and age.