Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is related to the issue that Senator Devine raised regarding St. John of God special school. As I understand it, the HSE is reconfiguring and moving to a model where it is seeking to have a range of supports within the community and that it would support the children with disabilities in the community, regardless of whether they are in a special school or not. That is the model it is developing for general disability support but at the same time it is working with us in developing an in-school model where we not only deliver some service within the school, but build the capacity of the school to extend that service. That can be a win win.

In the short term it might be said that there is competition for a scarce number of therapists, but if therapists can be put into an environment where the value of their interventions is added through training teachers and SNAs to have better programmes in the gaps between these sessions, then we can have a win win. We can have a greater impact on the children from the same number of therapists and if it proves itself of value in this pilot it will impact on the model as we move along. It is deliberately a pilot but it is a pilot in which the HSE is fully embedded. We can learn together on that.

Senator Gavan made a number of points on Fórsa and the development of SNAs. I fully expect that the NCSE will recommend training development for SNAs. In line with the professional development service for teachers and the various service providers, it is flexible. It uses education centres and some outside providers so I have no doubt that any development being done by Fórsa can be assessed by the Department and the NCSE as a potential partner in developing appropriate training programmes. The model, as can be seen from the pilot speech and language model, will be one where the speech and language therapist will not be just providing therapy to an individual child, but will be building the capacity of the teacher and the SNA through training, to extend and integrate that work. This model is a clear signal along the road that Senator Gavan's members are advocating, who want to see further training and believe they can be part of a better delivery. That is what we are trying to do.

The issue of job security is pertinent. It is inevitable with SNAs to a degree because they are often allocated to particular children and as that child moves on there is a question as to whether that post is available. This is one of the issues the NCSE will be looking at in its assessment. If this post is attached to a child it is not guaranteed to the school so there will always be some level of redeployment elsewhere. The positive is that in the last number of years we have been adding about 1,000 SNAs per year. We have been able to accommodate most of those who wanted to be redeployed to another place. We have been able to accommodate them so the system has worked relatively well. However, I take the point Senator Gavan is making. It is an issue I do not have an immediate solution to because some of these are linked to an individual and his or her child. I thank Senator Gavan for his support on the issue of how we give a clear signal on a legislative level to schools that soft barriers or any barriers to a child with special educational needs is not something we support.

I refer to access to ASD places. I agree that there are pockets where we have difficulties and the NCSE is addressing them. The bigger picture is that we are accommodating an awful lot more children. As I have said, the number of ASD units has grown rapidly. They consist of six children per unit and the pupil equivalent has gone from 3,200 to 8,000 in the last seven years. We have substantially expanded the number of places for intense support for children on the ASD spectrum and those are distributed right across the country. There are some 1,325 in different schools. However, there will inevitably be problems, for example, sometimes they will not be in the local school because they are specialist units, typically with six students assigned to them and it is only when a certain threshold is reached that the opening of a unit can be triggered. I admit that there are problems in accommodating people's needs as quickly as we would like. That is why home tuition can sometimes be an inevitable bridge. The bigger picture is that we are continuing to expand and the legislative power is being taken to require these units to be opened.

Not only are we expanding NEPS but as I said to Senator Ruane, the move away from requiring assessments as a gateway to get a service, to using assessment as an added value to ensure teachers are best informed of what a child needs, is in itself freeing up NEPS resources to be deployed more effectively.We are making progress on the number of schools covered and the way in which we cover them. We are continuing to expand NEPS. We are currently giving priority to disadvantaged schools, which I am sure the Senator would accept is a sensible approach but we will seek to expand that.

Senator Devine raised the issue of St. John of God special school. I hope our new model will help the situation there. It is one of the schools within the area where the new pilot will apply. We will have 19 speech and language therapists supporting a range of schools, including special schools, and this one will be among them. The position generally, as I understand it, is that while on the education side there are 92 children there, we have 16 teachers, a principal and 30 special needs assistants. That is our provision. Until this pilot we had not been providing speech and language therapy but under this pilot we will be providing speech and language and occupational therapies. I understand the provision of these therapies has been made to the overall range of services provided by the St. John of God organisation in the catchment. While some resources are assigned to the school more are assigned to the St. John of God's overall range of services, which have to cope with some of the difficulties referred to in terms of unfilled posts. That is a short-term problem but I certainly hope that school's inclusion in our pilot will be of help. My Department has had meetings with those in the school and this is one positive response that I hope will help that school.

Senator Devine raised the issue of children with very particular needs. There is no doubt they present challenges to the school system. We have been in the business of teaching and providing special needs assistants for children with those needs. We recognise that if we are to cater for some children, we need to find a way of building a new partnership with other providers such as speech and language and occupational therapists. If this model is successful, we can consider other potential specialisms where we could have professional partnerships between teachers, special needs assistants and parents in the school and those professionals. I hope this approach will open up a new route to catering more fully to a wider range of needs within the school setting. That could allow more children to successfully progress through the school.

The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, has looked internationally to see if there is a bolt-on model that would represent best practice for dealing with children with special needs, but there is not one. No one is putting their hands up and saying our model is a world leader. Many are looking at what we are doing and saying we are in a pretty good space in terms of the way in which we approach the challenge. How one gets the best model for integrating children with special needs into a school system on an integrated basis presents a challenge in every education system. I look forward to the work of the NCSE. It has just been received in my Department and is being assessed. Obviously, we will have to go to Government to bring it to the next level. The NCSE has put a great deal of work into this to help us design a model that would have the confidence of parents, which Senator Noone rightly pointed out is very important, and to provide us with the evidence to suggest this route is the right one to take.

I thank Senators for their contributions. While this area does not get national attention, it is a challenging one that deserves attention from the Oireachtas. It is an area where we do many positive things and prevent many problems that might otherwise develop and, thereby, allow people fulfil their potential, which is the goal that motivates all of us in the education area.