Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Chathaoirleach. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, to the House and it is good to have him here to put this Commencement matter in context. do not know what the visiting teacher for the visually impaired is. When I was a young boy back in County Clare with a visual impairment and attending mainstream schools, a visiting teacher used to come once a year. He was a very nice man by the name of Tim O’Connell from County Cork and he liaised with the family and the teaching staff to see what structures and services were needed to ensure that I would prosper in education at that time. Back then this involved arranging typing lessons, which might seem somewhat trivial but it was groundbreaking for me at the time. I had more or less forgotten about the visiting teacher programme until I received an email last April or May during lockdown from a parent who was very frustrated by the lack of contact from the visiting teacher with her regarding her adolescent child who was starting secondary school. I started probing then and discovered that the programme had evolved successfully since my days in school but, unfortunately, there has not been a great deal of consistency in the continuity, standardisation and updating of the service with the latest in ICT, various supports and so forth.

I discovered that the system was reviewed a number of years ago but this was done within the Department with the stakeholders and the National College of Art and Design, NCAD, at the time. Various bodies were involved in this review, which was effectively about delivering the management of the service. I am looking now for a fundamental review of this service. This service enables people who are blind and visually impaired to avail of mainstream education because for too long they have had to attend a special school for the blind and visually impaired people in Dublin. We are all trying to achieve and create fully integrated mainstream education. The visiting teacher from that perspective is very important. I want a review and evaluation of the visiting teacher programme. That needs to be independent of the Department and headed up by an academic to include, of course, representatives of the Department and the visiting teacher programme, but also representatives from organisations such as the National Council for the Blind and representatives of parents. This evaluation and review is important in trying to bring standardisation and the visiting teacher programme to a new level, where proper integration with the other support services that are available is fine-tuned and standard as opposed to being excellent in Cork, for instance, but not so good in Meath. I have discussed this with the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, in a conference call. I want the review to happen now with a tight timeline for it to come back with recommendations. I am very happy to engage with the Minister of State’s office regarding the structures of this review as it is important.