Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As someone with many family members who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and successfully come through ttreatment, thankfully, it is great news. I thank the Senator and the Minister of State.

In the minds of parents who do not have a child with special or complex needs such that their child needs to attend a special school, there is a perception that special schools have the ability to cater for all of these complex needs.There is the perception that these schools have staff who are fully trained and resourced to manage and respond to the complexities of the needs of the children, whatever matters arise. A parent who has a child with complex needs will probably have that same view. We come to it with a perception and the expectation that once the child commences education, he or she will be there throughout his or her education years, be fully catered for, that nothing that arises will be a surprise to anyone and that there will be professional and trained resource staff there to handle it. In the Joint Committee on Disability Matters last week we heard there is sometimes a preference among parents to have their child in a special school even though mainstreaming, a lack of othering and all of that is also important.

It is a shock to everyone to hear children with complex needs can be expelled from a special school. While I will not home in on any case, this is not something we would expect to happen. Expulsion, in the general understanding, comes with a stigma for the child that he or she has exhibited some allegedly deviant behaviour such that the school authorities cannot countenance having the child in the school anymore. It is a seriously reputationally damaging allegation to make against a child who is starting out in life, has little life experience and may be liable to make mistakes and stray into the wrong company, giving rise to the matters for which he or she is expelled. That is the stereotype we have in our heads about an expelled child but that cannot be applied to a child with special needs, who, by his or her very nature, may exhibit behaviour that is difficult or challenging as an expression of frustration, an emotion or a method of communication which professionally trained staff are trained and equipped to deal with.

Parents of a child with special needs who has been expelled from a special school find themselves having to find alternative schooling. Meanwhile, the child is cared for by a parent who may not be trained, has other responsibilities and has no respite care. It is not hard to see why it is draining and those parents may feel a sense of abandonment.

I acknowledge all that has been done by the Minister of State's Department and by that of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. The response from the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, has been really good when I have brought these cases to her. However, we need reassurances, given that these cases come up not infrequently, regarding the provision of education for children with acute needs, in light of the context of expulsions from special schools, where the behaviour that led to the expulsion is a manifestation of those complex needs. Are the resources sufficient? Is there sufficient planning? Is there enough training in the special school setting? If there are deficits, what plan do we have to campaign and combat that?