Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the students to the Gallery. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, for being here. I appreciate that the matter I raise is not his area of responsibility.

I raise the issue of special school liaison teachers through the prism of the pupils, families and staff in St. Paul’s Special School in Montenotte in Cork. I have been engaging with its principal, Anne Hartnett, as I have been with other schools, on the non-sanctioning of posts of home school liaison officer. These schools have made requests to the Department and the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, on the matter. It is important to put in context that these are special schools for a community within a community. No clarity has been given as to why these posts have been denied. Ministers have visited special schools, are fully cognisant of the need and do not disagree with the rationale and need for these posts.

I make my appeal on behalf of all special schools in the context of the real and urgent need for home school liaison officers and teachers. In the budget, we allocated close to 1,800 extra teaching posts. Surely we could make between 180 and 200 of these posts special school liaison teacher positions. This would leave the 108 special schools with 92 posts and only 90 are needed to give the support to the schools. I know the Department of Education has made a change regarding deputy administrative principals and allocating these posts is welcome and a help. However, it falls short of what is required.

Pupils deserve support and parents deserve to be empowered and have a scaffolding of support with them. As I said, special schools are not like typical schools because the pupils come from a range of communities. Some of them can live 50 km away or more. I know the Acting Chair has been very involved in her own area around this particular issue as well.

The child we are trying to assist and support here needs to be better supported. I hope by providing this particular post, we can do that. I look forward to the Minister of State’s response and I appreciate that it is not his area of responsibility. This is not only about Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, status. This is not about DEIS status, which the Minister, Deputy Foley, will refer to in response to parliamentary questions in the other House. I hope we will see common sense in this and ensure this post is allocated and given.