Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

To delete all words after 'Seanad Éireann–' and substitute the following: notes that

- inadequate funding and a lack of appropriate supports are negatively impacting on people with disabilities of all ages;
- many children with special needs have no access to appropriate preschool services;
- many children with special needs are being denied access to publicly funded health therapies such as speech and language therapy and occupational therapy, while in north Dublin children cannot get on a waiting list for such services;
- the cap on the number of special needs assistants and arbitrary cut in resource teaching allocations mean that primary and second level children are not getting the support they have been assessed as needing;
- underfunding of the NEPS has created huge unfairness, with children being denied access to assessments of their educational needs because their parents cannot afford to pay for them privately;
- adults with disabilities still do not have an appropriate range of educational and training options available to them after they finish school and many are being forced into care settings when they should be given an opportunity to develop their individual talents through appropriate education, training or work placements; and
- budget cuts have impacted negatively on the dignity and independence of people with disabilities of all ages;

and calls on the Government

- not to target people with disabilities for cuts in budget 2015, as it has in previous years; and
- to make improvements in educational and other services for people with disabilities a priority for its remaining term of office.

I welcome the fact that we are having this debate again. I appreciate that the Labour Party Senators have tabled a motion on disability as part of their Private Members' business. The reason we are moving an amendment to that motion is that we believe it is too general and that we need to have a more specific one that refers to all the various areas that should be prioritised by the Government in the approach to the budget, from preschool education to adult education and training.
In the last debate before the general election, both the Taoiseach and the then Tánaiste were asked what the key issue was. The then Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, said it was looking after people with disabilities, while the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, stated he agreed and felt an absolute priority should be the 300,000 people who suffer from mental illness every year. Unfortunately, the reality over the past three years has been different. There have been cuts to disability services pretty much at all levels across the system.
Many children with special needs still have no access to preschool services. We were all in agreement in previous debates in the House on early intervention, particularly for children from disadvantaged areas and those with special needs so they could get appropriate intervention as early as possible and not end up really far behind when starting school at the age of five or six. When they fall behind, they need much more intensive education. If they have not availed of speech and language services, or other services, their development is already curtailed. This is an area that really needs to be prioritised.
There are many children with special needs who are not getting any preschool service at all. They are finding it impossible to get accepted by a service. Community crèches are trying to welcome everybody and are accepting children with special needs, but they find they are not getting the support they need. They do not have the staff required to give the children an appropriate education. This is a difficulty and we need to make sure the appropriate supports are in place. Children with special needs have the same entitlement as everybody else. There is a legal entitlement established in the EPSEN Act for school-aged children. They have a legal entitlement to a school place and to supports, but this mandate does not apply to early childhood care and educational provision. This really needs to be prioritised.
Another big issue, on which my colleague Senator Darragh O'Brien will speak more, is that children with special needs are being denied access to publicly funded health therapies, such as speech therapy and occupational therapy. In my area, north Dublin, it has not been possible to get on a waiting list for a service since November 2012. The Minister of State will be familiar with this. That somebody who needs the services cannot even get on a waiting list is a really shocking indictment of the Government's priorities in recent years. This really needs to be addressed. In other parts of the country, the service is quite good. We debated this quite recently. I tabled a motion at a meeting of the Oireachtas education committee before the summer. I heard that in other parts of the country, including Cork, services are very good, but the reality is that in my area there are parents writing to me and ringing me in tears because their children cannot even be put on a list for a service. They see the impact this is having on their child and cannot do anything about it. This is really shocking.
At school level, the cap on special needs assistants and the arbitrary cut affecting resource teaching mean that primary and second level students are not getting the support they have been assessed as needing. They are assessed as needing a certain number of resource teaching hours but told that they can get only 85% of the allocation because of a financial cap. This has been very unfair.
Some years ago, we rightly adopted a principle of including special needs children in mainstream schools, where appropriate. Some parents still decide their children are better off in a special school if their needs are complex, but we wanted to have a system in which every child would be entitled to go to a mainstream school, and we said that, as part of a decent society, we would put the supports in place to assist them. The reality, however, for the schools is that it is very frustrating for the teachers when the children who present do not receive the supports that they need.
There is a gap in health therapy services. The Minister of State will be aware that some schools in his constituency, which is to be Dublin Bay North, have opened special classes and were given educational intervention resources because they were entitled to a certain number of educational staff, but they cannot obtain any speech and language services for the children. There have been cuts affecting Beechpark services and others. This means the affected teachers are pulling their hair out and are upset that there are children in their schools for whom they cannot really provide a proper service.
There has been much competition between the two Government parties over recent weeks as they argue over which tax cuts they prefer. The priority in the next budget should be to provide, based on whatever resources are available, a decent level of public services, particularly to protect those who are most vulnerable. The State should be protecting people with disabilities and those from disadvantaged areas. It should be undoing some of the more cruel cuts of the past few years.
I could speak at length about NEPS and all the other issues. I agree with some of the comments made by Senator Moloney on appropriate places for adults in training and education. Many of us were at the briefing organised last year on adults with intellectual disabilities. Unlike others, who are offered a suite of different choices, those with intellectual disabilities are forced into a care setting where somebody just looks at them all day while they are sitting around. They are capable of doing so much; they want to be working and want to be in training. They need to have better options. That is why we are proposing a more detailed motion, which I urge Senators to support.