Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I will make my opening remarks and then leave because, unfortunately, our education committee is sitting at the same time as this debate, which has happened a few times and is an issue I have brought to the attention of the Leader previously. I apologise but I will read the Official Report of the debate.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the issue of the new inclusion support service and also the broader issue of special needs education. We need to ensure that all our citizens get the education and training opportunities they deserve and that are in line with their individual needs and abilities.

Regarding the inclusion support service, I welcome this development. I can see its potential in ensuring that schools receive a more integrated service by having all the different support services working together and that this has the potential to help children. However, the service will only be as useful as the resources that are provided on the ground. The real issue is making sure that adequate supports are provided on the ground.

When the Minister initially announced the establishment of this new service she also announced that a new model would be coming in to replace the current general allocation model. That second part of the announcement has been parked, as the Minister said initially, but I would like more details on the reason for that. The general allocation model was a hugely positive development at the time. It was far better prior to that. We had a situation where an individual application had to be made in respect of every child before they could get access to resources. Children were not getting the support they needed and there was a major administrative backlog in the Department in terms of improving resources. The new system at least meant that, notionally, each school would have a level of resources to deal with higher incidence special needs and ensure that children would have access to supports, but the intention of the previous Government was always that it would be reviewed. Like any new system it should have been reviewed after a few years to see if it was working effectively and how it could be improved.

A particular issue was raised by representative groups and parents of children with Down's syndrome about the fact that they are not covered by the model. I welcome the Minister's announcement recently that children with a mild diagnosis, and I know the parents hate that phraseology, will have the two and a half hours extra teaching entitlement. That is a positive development but I would like more details on where the Minister stands in terms of the revised model.

When this proposal was announced Fianna Fáil welcomed, in theory, the fact that the Minister was considering addressing the deficiencies with the current system and bringing in a revised model, but we wanted to see the detail of how that would work. There is still a need for more detail, particularly on issues such as transition arrangements, an issue I have raised at the education committee also because if teachers are being taken out of a school where they have a certain level of support, proper transition arrangements are needed to do that.

The other issue that arose in the context of the work being done on trying to put a new model in place was the best way to collect data for that. I am aware that some of the schools and representative bodies raised an issue with the survey being done where they have to collect data from parents to put together an educational profile for the school. It is difficult to find a perfect system. I am not sure if there is a better way of doing that but it has inherent difficulties. The Minister might give some feedback when replying and as I said at the outset, I will read the Official Report of that.

With regard to special needs supports in general, we still have a long way to go. We are in a far better position than we were ten years ago. We now have 11,000 learning support and resource teachers in schools. We have special needs assistants. We have more special classes than ever before but we still have a long way to go to make sure that every individual has the support they need from preschool up to adult and higher education.

In terms of the school system, unfortunately, we cannot say yet that every child is being given an appropriate place. Within the mainstream system there are issues around ensuring that children in mainstream schools have the supports they need and that there is not an unfairness in that regard depending on whether the parents can afford to get an assessment. Some children are getting resources but those whose parents cannot afford to pay for private assessments are not getting them.

There are also gaps in respect of special classes. I was recently in correspondence with the NCSE on speech and language classes which, from the Minister's Department's point of view, she is prepared to staff. She can see there is a need for speech and language classes. There are some areas where places in speech and language classes are not available for children but while the education side of the house is prepared to step up and provide the teachers, there are not enough speech and language therapists on the health side so classes are not being set up and children are not getting the support they need.

Health therapies is an issue I tabled as a special topic at the education committee to bring in the HSE and ensure that more is done in that regard. The missing part of the equation in many areas in terms of children's education is making sure they are getting occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and other therapies from the health side that they need to avail of a proper education. The education budget is demand led. If there is a need for a class the Minister will secure the resources to provide it but that is not the case on the health side. That is a huge gap which I have raised many times in recent years, and I would welcome an update on how the Minister is getting on with the Department of Health on that.

There is also a need for proper support for students with psychological difficulties and mental health problems. That is an issue schools raise constantly with me, even in terms of the way they access those services. Those type of services should be provided in schools. The HSE appears to have done that in schools in a limited number of areas but not in most. Principals have told me that if they have a child with particular psychological difficulties they deal with the Mater children and adolescent mental health service, CAMHS. If the child has an appointment but the parent does not bring them to the appointment or for whatever reason the appointment is missed, the school cannot then get resources for that child. They have argued, and it is only sensible, that those appointments should be dealt with within a cluster of schools to link in those services instead of parents bringing children separately to a service to get it. The school is the obvious place to access those services.

There are big gaps on the preschool side also. We have published a policy on this to ensure that crèches and other preschool providers have the supports they need to genuinely include children with special needs.

I will mention briefly the further and adult education sector. This is an area that Inclusion Ireland and others have done a good deal of lobbying on in making sure that young adults with special needs can get the same education and training opportunities as other school leavers and that they are not shoehorned into whatever service that happens to be available. They should be offered opportunities that develop their own individual talents and interests and that are worthwhile from an individual point of view rather than fitting people to services that just happen to be available in an area.I welcome the provision of support services. The real issue from preschool all the way up to adult further education is resources on the ground and ensuring the supports are in place for people to make the most of their abilities, as well as ensuring no one is left behind.