Brendan Ryan (Labour)

The most disappointing aspect of the recent budget in the area of education was the lack of progress on the implementation of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004. I think this is scandalous, and the Disability Federation of Ireland, DFI, agrees. In its special budget 2010 newsletter, that organisation stated:

The Department of Education and Science decision to reduce the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) budget by €2.3 million (21% of budget) targets special education needs and demonstrates yet again the lack of commitment to implementing the EPSEN Act 2004

DFI believe that children with disabilities have already been unfairly targeted by the closure of 128 special classes in 2009. This decision disproportionately affected some of the most vulnerable children in our society.

The 2004 Act deals with children who have special educational needs. It aims to enhance the rights of children with disabilities to avail of and benefit from an appropriate education. The Act provides for a range of services which must be provided within a certain timeframe and, most importantly, in constant consultation with the student and his or her parents or guardians. Such services include assessments, individual education plans and supports and a process of mediation and appeals where needs are not met. Individual education plans allow for appropriately focused education supports to be put in place.

Children with special needs may regress significantly if intervention is not made from an early stage. In my view, the Act is progressive in giving children with special needs the right to attend mainstream schools with appropriate supports. The implementation of the Act is eagerly awaited by parents, advocates and everyone working in the area of disability. What is the point of enacting legislation and creating an expectation if it is not implemented?

The National Council for Special Education, which was set up by the Act, drew up a plan for implementation which was sent to the Department of Education and Science in 2006. The plan outlined the resources needed and set out a timetable for all sections of the Act to be completed by 2010.

The programme for Government told us that the Act would be completely rolled out. The revised programme for Government states:

We are committed to the implementation of the Education for People with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act. To achieve this we will develop, in consultation with stakeholders, a costed multi-annual plan to implement some priority aspects of EPSEN focussing on measurable, practical progress in education and health services for children with special needs.

I do not see any reason for hope in this statement. Are the programmes committed to implementing the Act or merely priority aspects of it? Not only is Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act not being progressed, class sizes have got bigger as well. We all, including the Government, know that bigger class sizes are bad for children, but especially so for children with special needs because they get less of the one-to-one attention they so badly need.

What is the reality on the ground for parents of children with special needs? The feedback from parents and advocates is that they are finding it very difficult to keep their children in education. We hear that children are being put on restricted days. They are being removed from the classroom and put sitting at a desk in a hallway, sometimes being monitored by an SNA and sometimes being left on their own. Those children are typically under ten years of age. Children are being put behind partitions in classrooms. They are being expelled from schools for behavioural issues. Children have to share an SNA even though they have been sanctioned a full-time SNA by the SENO. In some cases children are not given an SNA although one has been sanctioned. There are insufficient or no school places for children with autism in many areas, including part of my area, Balbriggan. Children as young as four years of age are travelling on buses to schools for children with autism for over an hour in the morning and again after school. Parents are being asked to remove their children from schools for a number of weeks. Where stand the rights of those children and their parents?

The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, is the statutory body established under the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act to improve the delivery of education services to persons with special education needs. One of its main functions is to deliver a local service through a national network of special education needs organisers, SENOs, who interact with parents and schools and liaise with the HSE in providing resources to support children with special educational needs. The NCSE's budget has been cut by 21%. Where is the commitment in that to special education? Hundreds of SNAs have been let go and it is expected that approximately 1,200 will be let go by the end of March.

Children with special needs are being abandoned by the Government. Children with physical and emotional problems are being left to fend for themselves. The NCSE review, which began last April, and is due to complete its work by the end of March, is not focusing on educational needs. The focus is on physical care needs without consideration of the effect on pupils or their classmates of the loss of SNA support. The Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, stated that he does not regard the reduction in SNA numbers as cuts but merely the removal of inappropriately employed people from the system. What utter nonsense. The recruitment of all of those people was approved by the Department of Education and Science in the first place.

The needs of those pupils do not diminish, as the Minister put it. He also argued that because parents have been given adequate notice that it is somehow okay. An bord snip nua recommended last summer that 2,000 SNA posts be cut to save €60 million a year. The Minister, in following that advice almost to the letter, is behaving as an accountant might do rather than as the Minister for Education and Science that he is who should primarily consider the associated negative educational outcomes and impacts. What is going on is totally unacceptable. Shame on the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe. Shame on the Government.