Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

In that case, I am pleased to endorse the amendment. I listened to what other speakers stated on the motion and there is no doubt that the record of the State and successive Governments over decades in providing for children with special needs has been poor. We can all put up our hands and state that down through the years nothing has been done. It is only in the past couple of years that an effort was made and €900 million is now spent on education for students with special needs. This is almost twice as much as in 2004.

With regard to staff, 19,000 staff in our schools work solely with children with special needs and this includes 10,000 special needs assistants, compared with 300 in 1997. There are also more than 7,000 resource and learning support teachers compared with 2,000 in 1998. More than 1,000 other teachers support children in our special schools while hundreds more work in special classes. We have made strides.

I am not saying everything is rosy in the garden, nor would I. I come from this profession and I dealt with people with special needs. I know the problems as much as anybody else. As I see it, there are still huge defects. However, the Government is making major efforts. While it is not absolute, let us hope over the next four or five years we will reach some satisfactory level. I know Senator O'Toole will throw up his eyes as I state this but we are trying and doing our best.

Having been in the system and having spoken to teachers within the schools, I am aware they are expressing the concerns outlined by Senator O'Toole. However, they are also saying that efforts are being made to try to reach out to those with special needs and God knows, we have to do this. We owe it to those children because under the Constitution they have to be given the same rights and opportunities as other children in our society.

With regard to the assessment procedure, we have a major lack of psychologists, particularly educational psychologists which is the area I know best. I am not familiar with clinical psychologists. I will use the model of the City of Dublin VEC, which is successful in how it deals with assessing children with special needs who come into the system. It has resource teachers, remedial teachers, special needs teachers and guidance counsellors. In a way, it works very well where one psychologist deals with a region. Case studies are done and a plan is made with the child's principal, to which Senator O'Toole made reference. This plan was always there. I used it seven or eight years ago whereby a student was assessed and a psychologist then came in.

However, we have a lack of co-ordination between the two Departments with regard to child guidance clinics. If an educational psychologist wants to refer a child to the child guidance area, it breaks down. We should examine this entire area to see how best we can improve co-ordination. We are short of psychologists. Yesterday I asked a psychologist what was wrong and how come the State was crying out for psychologists. I was told they are not going into education but into the business world where they are getting very cushy jobs doing assessments and training and earning huge salaries. Perhaps that is an area at which we need to look. Many attempts have been made to try to lure psychologists into the education system but it is very difficult. If those in Opposition were in power, they would say the same thing.

We are trying to put things right and to see how we can move forward in terms of doing the best for these children. Improvements have been made with the intervention programme for autistic children. Although all is not right, there has been a major improvement in that area.

Will the Minister of State address the issue of co-ordination between the Departments of Health and Children and Education and Science and do his best to lure psychologists into the education system to try to improve the assessment process and set up individual education plans because it all stems from them? If education plans are in place, we can work to give every opportunity to children with special educational needs to enable them to thrive.

There is a lot more to do. I am not sure we have made it yet but we have a five-year programme and I accept that over the five years, we will make it work. Will the Minister of State make every effort to honour the commitments in the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act because it is a good Act which can work?