Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I, too, would like to raise the report by the ombudsman, Mr. Niall Muldoon. The website of the Ombudsman for Children states it is Mr. Muldoon’s job to make sure the children in Ireland are treated fairly. The report, published yesterday, is probably one we all know and have heard stories about. It is now formally on the Government’s record that children with additional needs are being failed by the Department of Education. The Minister of State in that Department, Deputy Madigan, and the Minister, Deputy Foley, have spent huge amounts on special educational needs. They spent €2 billion extra. They spent 25% extra in the budget. The Minister of State promised yesterday to speed up legislation to ensure the section 37A process will work more effectively.

In the report, the ombudsman said we need to be more imaginative when it comes to education for children with additional needs. It is really welcome that the responsibilities of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will be moved to the Department responsible for equality. This will start in July. I hope there will be a movement on the therapy side.

On the education side, however, it is easy to open up a class but it is not easy to support it properly. If the Minister is to open extra classes, which I hope she will do, we must ensure they receive the right supports, including occupational therapy, speech and language, and psychology supports. Opening up a class in name will just not work out. It would entail an appropriate placement and parents and children would be back to square one, having to stay at home. If we are to move forward by opening up more special classes, it will have to be done appropriately; otherwise, it will just be lip service.

The figures were shocking. Some 15,000 children were travelling outside their catchment areas and not going to the local schools. This is so unfair. They already have additional needs and they must leave their siblings behind every day. I have heard stories of toddlers being offered transport in taxis to go to crèches. It is absolutely unbelievable. The additional-needs environment or framework is all wrong. If anything, the Government needs to consider the wording that Mr. Muldoon included in his report. The system needs to be reimagined and recalibrated because the current system, from therapy and early intervention to school placements at primary and secondary levels, is absolutely broken.

I commend the Leave Our Leave campaign, whose representatives were outside the Oireachtas today. It is a campaign to ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O’Gorman, to amend the maternity legislation to allow women undergoing cancer treatment to defer that treatment until they are ready to take their maternity leave. Many women receiving cancer treatment may have only one opportunity to have maternity leave, given the nature of cancer treatment. I ask everyone to support this.