Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein)

I would also like to express my sympathies to the family of Carmencita Hederman. I knew Carmencita, though not very well. I knew her daughter Wendy, who was a councillor in Dublin Bay South. The family is dedicated to public service, the environment and protecting communities, so I wanted to add my sympathies.

Annie Callan's son, Oisín, is 13 years of age. Oisín is another example of a neurodivergent child being failed by the State. Oisín is a lovely, gentle child. He is nonverbal but able to work away independently when he has a routine and structure. However, his family are devastated because like so many he cannot get a school place in Dundalk and as a result he will not have the structure he desperately needs. Annie has applied to all the schools in Louth with ASD units and he is on the wait list for all of them in Dundalk. There are only two schools for boys with ASD units. Coláiste Chú Chulainn has a waiting list of 30 and the De La Salle College did not open registration for this year as it has no space because it only has the one class. St. Brigid's Special School refused Oisín saying he did not meet its criteria. Oisín has been in the unit in Kilsaran National School since infant class and what really frustrates families like his is that the Department of education knows these children will be graduating and still cannot ensure they will have school places available to them when they go into secondary school. These children are the most vulnerable in our society and it is an absolute disgrace that the Government is doing nothing for parents and children with disabilities. Oisín and his family are not unique. There are hundreds and thousands of children and parents in the same position. It is important to have the Minister come in and explain when the Government is going to wake up and pay attention to children and make it mandatory that all secondary and primary schools have ASD units, because as much as it might like to avoid or ignore the situation it is not going away. The Government is going to spend hundreds of thousands of euro taxiing children out of their communities to go to schools far away from their homes when they should be going to school with their siblings in their local community. We need to get the Minister in to explain what the plan is and why secondary schools do not all have an ASD class.