Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The issue of the child with autism whose parents are faced with an extraordinary legal bill has seized public attention this week. I do not necessarily agree with what the parents are trying to do. I have told the House before I believe applied behavioural analysis, ABA, is a perfectly good system, but that the Department of Education and Science should have more eclectic arrangements in place. However, that is not the issue. The point is that the parents in question were acting constitutionally as prime educators of their child. They were driven to do something, as there was an imperative on them to do the best for their child. They had no option but to take the matter to its limit. They have done all of us a service by so doing. I am not arguing with the outcome in the courts. The courts came to a decision, right or wrong. However, it is wrong, unfair and undemocratic that these people are now being made bankrupt by fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities and imperatives.

The House passed the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act in 2004. I appealed at that stage for a commencement date to be included. The Minister refused and I was told that parts of the Act would be commenced over time. The Act allowed for the involvement of parents at the assessment stage of a child with educational needs. It provided for an appeal as part of the assessment. It then involved teachers, psychologists, other professionals and parents in the determination of the resources required and, again, the parents have an appeal process built into that.

In terms of the application of resources, it involved a series of professionals and allowed the parents to make appeals. There were to be three systems of appeal, which were accepted and promoted by the Government as an extraordinary commitment on the basis that there would never be a shortage of resources for children with special educational needs. The State's refusal to commence the appropriate sections of the Education for People with Special Educational Needs Act, EPSEN, has driven these parents to go the route of the law as far as the Supreme Court to try to get what is best for their child. There would have been no need for them to have done so had we put in place what was passed by the Oireachtas. The Government's failure to implement the appropriate sections, or 90%, of the EPSEN Act, means these parents are now in this quandary. We owe them something and I ask the Leader to bring it to them.