Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

I understand the difficulties and sensitivities in this area. Last week, I raised the issue of special needs assistants on the Adjournment and the Minister gave a very unsatisfactory reply. Even following that reply, serious questions remain to be answered. We need answers. Senators on the Government side dispute the figure of 1,200 SNA jobs lost. My colleagues in the Dáil have submitted parliamentary questions on this issue but no matter how often we ask the question, the Minister refuses to tell us how many special needs assistants have been lost in the last year. We do not know how many more will be lost or if schools which have lost SNAs or special classes will be provided with additional special needs supports. We do not know if additional resources will be provided for schools which have lost special needs supports or if mainstream class teachers will be given extra training to deal with the loss of those supports. I ask the Minister of State to answer these questions. It is important that we debate this issue with accurate facts. The pupils, who are most affected by these cuts, as well as their parents, teachers and communities, deserve answers.

Until I have official figures I must rely on the information I have been given, that up to 1,200 special needs assistants will have been cut from the system by the end of this month. This support is being withdrawn from children with a wide range of conditions within the autism spectrum and with ADHD and dyslexia. We have heard of cases of cuts to services to children with Down's syndrome. These cuts cannot be justified, especially in the context of large class sizes, some as big as 30 to one teacher. Cuts have already been implemented, such as that to the resource grant and home school liaison teachers.

A child with a special need in a mainstream classroom without adequate support would surely get lost in the system. To deny a child a proper chance of education and of life, all for the sake of a few million euro which could otherwise be found, is disgraceful.

It is high time the Government looked at the provision of special needs assistants as more than a financial matter. We are talking about children and not numbers. They do not deserve to be shoved from pillar to post as an accounting exercise. Cuts to special needs support is not only heartless. This move will seriously impair these children's education for years to come and will have knock-on effects in the future. It is another example of the Government's shortsighted cost-cutting measures. Special needs assistants are not a luxury that can be cut. They are absolutely essential and an integral part of the education system.

Earlier, we heard reference to the 1916 Proclamation. The leading party in the Government claims to be a republican party. The republican message in the Proclamation, the pledge made by the leaders of 1916 to the Irish republic, was to cherish all the children of the nation equally. That is what we are talking about in this debate. We are talking about children and equality. Children have as much right to a decent education and a decent start to life as anybody else.

I appeal to the Minister not to proceed with further cuts to special needs support and to reinstate the support that has already been lost. I will support the motion tabled by the Fine Gael Party and I commend it on availing of the opportunity to raise this in a formal debate. I note that the motion does not call for the reinstatement of the cuts that have taken place, and that is where I would differ from it. The supports which have been cut should be reinstated.

Where there has been significant investment in the area of special needs by this Government, it has been rightly applauded by people throughout in this State, no more than it was applauded at Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheiseanna, because it was the right thing to do. It is the republican thing to do. However, when supports are withdrawn from vulnerable children, the right thing and the republican thing to do is to reinstate them.