Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Tá mé buíoch go bhfuil deis agam an ábhar tábhachtach seo a ardú ar an Tosú sa Seanad inniu.

I wish to raise an issue that has been of considerable concern in County Meath, particularly in child care settings, for seven months or so. Not many people are aware that, in County Meath and possibly some other counties, the former health boards and then the HSE have funded special needs assistants, SNAs, in preschools for decades. As there was an SNA in my child's preschool class, I believed it was routine. It did not occur to me that it was a specific provision that could be put under threat. I could not see how the child with special needs or the rest of the class could operate without that SNA.

In or around June of last year, HSE officials wrote to preschools in County Meath informing them that the service was being withdrawn. This caused considerable consternation and some level of disbelief. During the past six months, a campaign entirely composed of providers of child care services has built up. They have now been joined by parents. They organised a meeting on the issue last week in Navan. It was a cold winter's night, but the meeting was packed and was one of the largest I had ever attended. Some parents were in tears over the uncertainty created by the HSE's bad news. Others paid tribute to the SNAs who had done tremendous work with their children. One woman credited an SNA with giving her child the gift of speech. Subsequently, we heard from the HSE through the media - as usual - that it would fund the provision of SNAs, but that it had not yet decided on the level of funding.

This system is haphazard. Are we depending on the budgets and whims of the HSE and Government for the provision of SNAs? I believed we were beyond such. While there will always be budgetary issues and we will always need more SNAs, I never envisaged that someone could decide to abolish the entire system and that everyone would lose. In general, something like this has not happened in the austerity climate. We will have another day for a political debate, but Governments have tried to level out the impact so that no one would be targeted for complete elimination. Cuts have been made across the board as best as possible.

Last week's HSE statement that it would continue funding the service was welcome, but it has not announced the level of that funding. There is still considerable concern and I have been asked to keep raising the matter until we get clarity on what is happening.

There is a key political issue.

Can someone please tell the HSE not to be putting parents and, indeed, the providers of preschool education, through this stress, this trauma, the tears and the upset that I witnessed at a public meeting in a public forum last Thursday night? I am sure this has been replicated in homes and in preschools. Many of the parents whose children are availing of preschool special needs assistants will also be availing of the same service next year if they are participating in a two-year ECCE or two-year programme. Those parents who are currently availing of the services are concerned for everybody else but they are also concerned about their own situation. I pay tribute to the group comprising five providers of child care who have been joined by other people. They have brought the HSE so far but, in my view, there was no need for this crisis to happen and there would have been no need to have this public meeting if there had been a proper statement yesterday and proper provision. There were arguments over whether the health service should be involved as opposed to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. This is a matter for the Department's internal administration but the bottom line is that the Minister's Department is the provider and I thank the Minister of State for her attendance today.