Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for his amendment. I spoke at length on Second Stage of the Bill on all the resources that have been put in place. I do not suggest that everybody is satisfied with all of the wrap-around services, but there have been 300 extra classes in the last year, there will be more than 315 in the next academic year, and a quarter of the entire education budget will go towards special needs education, which a lot of people probably do not realise.

The reason I have an issue with the amendment is not because I do not believe there should be multidisciplinary teams. I spoke about this on Second Stage. Multidisciplinary teams are needed. Parents and schools have concerns around those teams and the supports. The process under section 37A does not happen very often. All of this should be happening for every school rather than just in relation to the section 37A process. That is why I do not believe this is the place for it, because otherwise the Minister will go through the 37A process with only a handful of two or three schools. It would not be fair if those particular schools which have dug their heels in and said they will not have a special class are the schools we report on whether they have these multidisciplinary teams. All schools should have access to multidisciplinary teams.

We need to get the message out strongly that no school opens special classes and regrets doing so afterwards. Senator Warfield's colleague made this point on Second Stage of the Bill in the Dáil. Part of the reason they do not regret it is that they are provided with the resources that they need. For every class of six students in primary school, there is one teacher and two SNAs. For every class of six pupils at secondary school, there is 1.5 teachers and two SNAs. This is in addition to the multidisciplinary aspect. It should not only be under the remit of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan; it has to go across Departments as well. Those are my thoughts on it but that is not to say that I do not agree with the multidisciplinary aspect of the amendment. It needs to be for everyone.