Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I echo Senator Byrne's remarks with regard to the Quinn family and their need for justice.

I want to read into the record a small part of an email that I received this morning. It is similar to many emails I get all of the time. I will read just a couple of lines:

My son has low vision and is registered with the NCBI. I have fought so hard over the last eight weeks and yesterday got the call that we won and the school had been allocated, the hours needed to SNA hours. They needed eight hours a week. The stress, anxiety and upset for my son over the last eight weeks in trying to manage the school ... [that is in a wider context].

Further on the email references that the following information was sent to this woman:

The NCSE has responsibility for planning and coordinating the school supports for children with special education needs, including the allocation of SNA's and reviews. The department doesn't have a role in making those determinations because we have a bespoke body who are supposed to be doing this and it's not happening.

The methodology that's applied by the NCSE is not effective or on time. It's not timely in its delivery of the needs for children who very clearly need SNA support. So here we have a budget that was fantastic in its allocation, that we have a government that provides for an additional and eleven hundred and sixty five SNA's for the coming year.

That's on top of the record numbers that we've ever had employed at the state. So we have political will for the delivery of SNA's and for ensuring the children are supported in their schools and the system itself in the administration, if that breaks down.

One of the last big public meetings I attended in February 2020 was hosted by Involve Autism in Dublin 6.They were talking about the lack of places in schools, the type of system and the relationships with special educational needs organisers. They are merely given lists of schools to apply for and they have to apply for 20 or 30 schools. The system does not work. We need an update. We need a debate. I am at a loss to know what else we need, but we definitely need to ensure that on the boards of these organisations, which are set up to serve the citizens of the State, we have people who represent the needs of distressed parents who are pushed to the limit emotionally in trying to fight tooth and nail for their children.