Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being here today and for the considerable work she has done in bringing us to this stage of phased reopening. On Thursday, children with special educational needs will return to school on a shared basis. They will be afforded the opportunity to experience school life and in the current environment we can iron out the emerging issues before we go into the mid-term break. Following the break, children with special educational needs in mainstream schools will also return to the education setting. This is very much welcomed by those children and their parents.

We are all aware that online learning is not for every child and takes an amount of supervision and support that cannot always be delivered in the home. In-person learning is the most appropriate and effective method. School is not just about education. It is also about personal development and social and life skills. The entire experience of getting ready for school, attending, making friends and falling out with them, working together, taking turns and all the little moments of school are about learning for life. Children with special needs live for this and look forward to the routine, the faces, and the surroundings. They have been denied this since before Christmas so it is heartbreaking that it has taken until now for this reopening to occur, through no fault of the Minister of State's own diligent work.

I am mindful that the Covid numbers in the country are frightening. Every day, the numbers of people losing family members is strikingly high. Behind every statistic is a person whose life has been impacted by the lives of others and who is mourned and missed. I understand the reservations aired by SNAs and teachers about the return to school. I appreciate that considerable work has gone into providing the supports demanded. Medical advice, personal protective equipment, PPE, and reassurances have been provided and accommodations have been made for those with personal medical concerns or loved ones they care for who are in a vulnerable category. I hope the 50% return will become a 100% return as quickly as possible.While 50% is a vast improvement on none at all, it is not however in the best interests of the child for the return to routine to be denied even half of the time.

I thank the Minister of State for her in-person supplementary programme which is another great initiative which will benefit up to 23,000 children. I cannot waste the opportunity but to beat the drum for the autism spectrum disorder, ASD, units and for the children who do not have an opportunity to go to school in their local community. There are areas and postcodes without ASD units in schools. We need to keep going with the work on that area which I know is being wholeheartedly done by the Minister of State.

I am aware that the argument of older, outdated and restrictive buildings has been the reason for many of the delays but, frankly, some of the schools are getting away with blatant discrimination against children with autism and their right to be accommodated in their local community.

This time last year I attended a public meeting of Involve Autism and it was heartbreaking to listen to parent after parent citing the extremes that they are obliged to go to to secure a place in school for their child. The Minister of State has brought this along and provided many more units, way beyond what would be expected in the very short time that the Minister of State is in the Ministry. I congratulate her for that. I ask her to keep the pressure up and not to allow the school boards abdicate their responsibility and accountability to her in that regard.

I cannot let education go by without congratulating the Minister of State most sincerely for the extraordinary work she has done in the decision to open Scoil Choilm as an ASD specific school. Today I ask, even though I have asked more formally in another context, for a progress update in that regard. Is everything going full steam ahead and are we ready for the September of this year opening? There is great anxiety on the part of all those involved to obtain the reassurance that in the midst of Covid-19 and in all that is going on, together, naturally, with all of the other issues which occupy her Ministry at the moment, that we are still advancing towards the opening of that school, equipping it, together with attending to its governance and oversight. I know that the Minister of State is preparing a report in a more formal sense in another context for me on that issue. Can she kindly give a little nod to them as I know that they are out there listening in this afternoon? I thank the Minister of State very much for her continued, dedicated work which is very much appreciated.