Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In the first instance, I too welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, to the House and I acknowledge the work she has done. The narrative and the media coverage up to just after Christmas was about the leaving certificate. Up to that point, the only person focused on special needs education and the need to get these young people back to school was the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. I know it is her job, but she is doing a good job advocating within her Department for special needs children. It is my considered view that this issue was kept on the agenda and that we are where we are today because of the dogged determination of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. Since taking up her role eight or nine months ago, her engagement with the various groups has been fantastic. On occasion, I have asked her to meet groups and she has readily and willingly met them. The engagement has been proactive and substantial and very productive.

We have come a long way in terms of special education in this country. It has been very regrettable that children who require the supports have not been able to access them for significant chunks of the last 12 months. I was one of the children who in the late 1980s-early 1990s would have been considered a special education student in terms of needs and requirements. At that time, there were no support or resource teachers and no SNAs but there was a visiting teacher for the visionally impaired who visited a school once a year and had a chat with the teachers. The teachers were the SNAs and the support structures. They were committed to ensuring that someone who had ability was able to progress through the system to university. Today, thankfully, we have a much more structured system, one that, by and large, has seen significant increases in funding year-on-year for the past number of years.

Very little good comes out of a pandemic. I am convinced that going forward the toolkits, support structures and alternative mechanisms that have been devised by the Minister's officials and teachers at national and local level will serve to enhance the experience from which young people with special educational needs will benefit.We will be looking at a range of supports, for example, toolkits to support parents at home. Unfortunately, some children with special needs have to be at home for periods. The structure and infrastructure is there now to be able to support them with equipment, toolkits, videos, work plans and work programmes that have been designed to help with home schooling. That is extremely welcome.

I spoke to the Minister of State previously and I raised in the House the need to review the visiting teacher system for those who are visually impaired and hearing impaired in mainstream schools. Lockdown has shown that some visiting teachers have gone above and beyond the call of duty in terms of engaging and liaising with parents but, sadly, that is not the case universally. During the first lockdown in particular, some parents of visually impaired children did not receive even one telephone call from the visiting teacher. The Minister has committed to reviewing the structure of the visiting teacher system within the Department. I know she has taken on board my proposal that a parent of a visually impaired student would participate in the review. I ask her to provide an update on the status of the review. I commend the Minister of State and her team on getting us where we will be next Thursday and going forward.