Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit, Deputy Devins.

Can we begin by putting matters in context? Some of the parties in Government have been in power for 11 years and, day after day on the Order of Business a number of their members speak about disability and education as if they were in Opposition. Every day they berate the Government on the lack of action and joined-up thinking on disability, health and education. The Minister of State and his colleagues should not forget that cutbacks hurt the old, poor and handicapped. This was their slogan in 1987. They have not forgotten it and I will not forget it because they have done nothing to alleviate the problem since. We have spent an inordinate amount of money and the Government amendment reads well on paper, but it is not the case in real life, as the Minister of State, Deputy Devins, and Senator Corrigan know.

The motion is important for the individual pupils and the people who are directly affected by the full implementation and roll out of the EPSEN Act, but it also has an effect on their parents, their brothers and sisters, the wider school community and the wider population in general. We are concerned here with the most vulnerable in our society. If the way we treat them is indicative of the state of our health as a nation and a State, then it reflects badly on us and on the people who we supposedly cherish. Without doubt, children with special educational needs are among the most vulnerable to ongoing marginalisation if they do not get early and appropriate educational support and provision. I say that as a teacher and one involved with disability groups in my city of Cork. We must put people at the centre of any legislative programme and any activity of ours in the future.

While the EPSEN Act is important, it is only one part of the process of the identification of learning needs and the development of education and community-based programmes of intervention to ameliorate and remediate that need. Let us look at the EPSEN Act in the overall context of the Comhairle Act 2000 and Disability Acts, the purposes of which are to serve to give effect to greater access to essential services. Unfortunately, at the coalface there are significant discrepancies about the quality and manner of service delivery. Senator Corrigan sometimes raises issues here in her professional capacity. I admire her for that because she is not shy in doing so. The same can be said of Senator McFadden, Senator Fitzgerald and myself.

However, all groups campaigning and active on disability in this country, such as Inclusion Ireland, the Disability Federation of Ireland, the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies, have spoken out against the ethos and underlying philosophy and ideology of the Acts I mentioned earlier. Disability groups and parents want rights based legislation and they have failed to get that. We have seen the consequences of that decision, most recently in the debate in the other Chamber on the lack of essential ABA places and schools for children with autism. The Acts, which were drafted in the main in response to parents taking legal action, will result in many more parents, who feel deprived, taking the long road to the High Court to get what in effect should be essential elements of primary education for their children with specialneeds.

I agree with Senator Boyle. Let us not force parents to go to the courts. There is a duty upon us as legislators and on the Government not to do that. Let us not force parents to take that road.

One of the failures of this Government with respect to the provision of services for special needs has been the ad hoc nature of the development of services and implementation of legislation. The Departments and the Ministers for Health and Children and Education and Science have failed to develop co-ordinated programmes to ensure that there is a seamless interchange between the meeting of medical needs and education provision. The questions of who provides occupational therapy, speech and language therapy or neurological assessment have not been resolved, and protocols have not been put in place to ensure that these questions have been answered.

The Department of Education and Science has failed in service delivery. For example, NEPS is under staffed and under resourced. It was established in 1990s with the aim to have a full complement of 200 psychologists by 2000, and it is 25% below that allocation. According to subsequent published reports, such as that of the Task Force on Autism, the figure of 200 psychologists is a gross under estimation of the overall projected need.

Society and the needs of society have changed, and the types of support required change. In the past few years all of us who have been out knocking on doors would have met an increased number of parents and families with children with autism, Asperger syndrome and other aspects of ASD spectrum. There is a significant increase in the number of children presenting themselves with emotional and behavioural difficulties. All of these and other conditions require capable education planning and programming. Government has failed to acknowledge, or factor into its forward strategies, the number of children with special educational needs who are currently attending our mainstream schools and who will be attending schools in the next five years. Improvements in educational assessment and diagnostic techniques, and a greater understanding of the neurological pathways involved in learning, mean that more children are now being classified with general and specific learning needs, and there are children with more severe and complex needs arising from organic syndromes and conditions who are surviving longer, thankfully, and now have an expectation of education. Today we were in Buswells Hotel meeting with people who have been left behind and who are being deprived of services.

We need to see precise attention to a careful development and implementation of individual education plans, which are seen as an essential and vital part of the jigsaw of special education provision. The motion is an important one because it deals with people. I agree with Senator Boyle in that on this side of the House there would be a welcome for a cross-party initiative whereby we can progress the issue, but there must be meaningful dialogue and we cannot have a situation where the HSE is used by the Minister as a shield.

We have invested billions of euro in education and health. Are we really stating in 2008 that, given all the amount of money we spent, the health service is better now than it was 11 years ago? If one listens to the Joe Duffy radio programme, to the people on the street, to the people protesting and to the ordinary citizen, the answer is a resounding "No".

I hope Deputy Cowen comes into the House as Taoiseach and says to those in the Departments of Health and Children and Education and Science that they have had 11 years and done nothing. I hope he tells the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, to pack her bags because it is time for her to go.