Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

From my reading of them, the purpose of the provision in the 1998 Act and this amending provision is to set out a chain of responsibility and decision-making obligations. By stitching in the provision that the patron shall co-operate, it puts an obligation on the patron to ensure the school is complying. This will ensure there is nowhere in the chain of decision-making in which there can be any abdication of the responsibility to make provision for a special class or special provisions within a mainstream class.

Section 8 of the principal Act, which is amended by this provision, is about the role and obligations of the patron. This proposal strengthens those obligations by specifying there shall be co-operation rather than allowing any opportunity for patrons to sit it out and leave special education provision to the board of the school. There has been evidence of school boards attempting to avoid making that provision. By stitching in an obligation on the patron, requiring that the latter shall co-operate with the NCSE and shall provide special classes, it ensures that everybody who is in a decision-making position is obligated to act.

The section 37A process, even in its truncated form, involves several stages. It is the council that issues a report, and that report is quite detailed. The specifications that shall be required within that include consideration of existing provisions, buildings, capacity and other matters within a school. All of that is taken into account and it is the report on it that is acted on in notice. There is a 14-day engagement period in which representations can be made, then a draft direction and then another 14-day period. The obligation is that schools and patrons shall act to ensure provision of special classes as close as possible to every child's home and community. That obligation is rightly being put in and rightly being strengthened prior to the triggering of the 37A process.

It is right that this process should apply prior to the operation of the 37A provisions. It should not come to it that an additional notice is needed. The process is the issue of a report, the notice period of 14 days, a draft direction and then another 14 days before documents are issued to say action must be taken. It would be shameful for any school to reach that stage. It is the nuclear button, but there is a process that comes before it. The object of the amendment to section 8, as I see it, is to strengthen the obligation on every party in the decision-making process.