Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Today I raise the issue of July provision. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Autism which is chaired by my colleague, Senator Carrigy. Last July that committee issued a report which made a number of recommendations relating to July provision. We are getting a lot of feedback from parents who are telling us that many schools still do not have their July provision in place for this year and parents do not know what they are doing. In fairness, the Department has brought lots of schools into the programme and provided a massive amount of funding but there still seems to be a problem. The incentives for teachers to sign up in order to get the schemes in place do not seem to be working and teachers do not seem to be getting involved en masse. I am not saying that the Department is not bending over backwards but the carrot seems to be missing that would enable the summer programmes to be set up and this makes it so difficult for families.

Eight weeks off school for a child with additional needs places a huge burden on parents and families. It is also a huge burden for the child who is completely discombobulated because his or her normal routine is not in place. We might need to look again at the July provision programme going forward. We cannot continue to have this massive gap in the education of children who have severe additional needs for eight weeks every year. The whole system of summer holidays is archaic for parents who are working. It falls on women to juggle everything during the summer, not just for children with additional needs but also for neurotypical children. I know that teachers do not like this idea but one teacher told me that teachers are on holidays for more days than they work. I am not going against teachers; they do a great job, but let us pay them more and they will work. As someone said previously in relation to childcare, education for working families is childcare. Schools supervise our children during the day, when half of the population, the women of Ireland, have to go out to work. If we do not have decent childcare, even at primary school level, we cannot do our jobs properly and we cannot contribute.

I am highlighting the issue of July provision now in the hope that things will start moving for families.