Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a great deal of expertise in the area of education in this House.

My expertise is limited to third level but undoubtedly there have been some interesting contributions and I imagine the Minister will agree that there are some expert people in the House.

I thank Senator Mullen for bringing forward this good motion. It is important to take some time to recognise that we have come a long way with the Irish educational system when it comes to special needs education. While Senator Mullen and several other speakers have referred to disabilities such as Down's syndrome, we should accept that special needs education covers a wider range of disabilities, including dyslexia and dyspraxia. I have had some experience of the educational system and I welcome the change in direction that there has been within the system, even within the past decade, in terms of the provision of resources to children who require particular help. These include the facilities that have been made available to children who have dyslexia and dyspraxia, for example, to enable them to compete on a more level playing field when it comes to the State examinations. The provision of facilities such as being able to do examinations by tape recorder and the provision of scribes and so on have helped these children.

We tend to focus on one extreme of the spectrum but it is important to recognise that many children have been assisted by our recognition and broader understanding of what special needs entails. We will never know the number of Irish adults in the country today who were denied a third level education because they never got such assistance, or the number who were categorised as clumsy, for example, or even the number of left-handed children who were told that they could have it beaten out of them. That happened in my lifetime. Therefore, we have come a long way and that needs to be accepted. The Disability Access Route to Education, DARE, scheme in particular has given access to third level education to many young adults who would never have had the opportunity otherwise. With my experience of third level education I am aware that this support continues into third level education and that it is effective.

The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, report notes that the majority of schools operate an inclusive enrolment policy and practice. The report indicates that some schools continue to operate less-than-wholly-inclusive enrolment practices. The Minister is not running away from that issue. It is important to recognise that the Minister has accepted the motion in the main and there is no essential disagreement. However, it is also important to accept that the report under discussion only reached the Minister's desk on 17 May, less than two weeks ago. To some extent we are being a little premature given the commitment the Minister and the Department have made to review it. They have acknowledged that the report deserves in-depth and detailed examination and exploration and this takes a good deal more than two weeks. The Minister has stated that a consultation will be required with stakeholders on some of the recommendations prior to any decisions being made to implement them.

At a recent trade union conference the Minister announced that he intended to bring to Government the draft heads of the education (admissions to school) Bill 2013 to tackle some of the issues that have been raised today in respect of school admission policies. The Minister stated that the draft Bill will allow for a full public discussion, including ourselves and other Members of the Oireachtas, to ensure that we have a structured fair and transparent schools admission policy. It is important to put that on the record.

One of the issues I had intended to raise has been raised by Senator Healy Eames. It relates to one of the main findings of the NCSE policy advice to the effect that diagnosis should not be a prerequisite or determinant for the allocation of additional resources for a child or young person with special educational needs. Instead allocation should be based on the needs of the child irrespective of category of disability. I call on the Minister to explain this in more detail.

It is important to note that the Government has made and continues to make a significant contribution towards special needs education and that €1.3 billion, which is approximately 15% of the Department's budget, is spent on special educational supports. Like other Senators, I hope this commitment is maintained in future and I imagine the Minister shares that hope.