Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)
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Thank you, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, for selecting this matter. I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Callely, to the House to reply to it.

It is not usually my form to raise on the Adjournment a particular matter concerning one individual. However, the reason I am raising this matter on the Adjournment is that the parents of this child have hit rock bottom in terms of their communications with the Department and the school. For the past number of years, the school has been asking the Department to provide the child in question with a special needs assistant. The child's parents recently told me they were prepared to remortgage their house to get the income required to provide their child with the kind of special needs assistance the State should provide.

The child, who is seven years of age, suffers from autism and attends a school in Rathgar where all his needs are currently being met. However, it is the opinion of the school, the parents and the teachers that the child requires a special needs assistant. Over the past two years the school, which operates in unique circumstances, has applied to the Department of Education and Science and it has asked the Department to reply to this application. In each year that application has been turned down.

I make these remarks against the context of the recent announcement by the Minister for Education and Science regarding the provision of additional permanent teaching posts in respect of special needs, which is very welcome. This child's needs are unique. We have an obligation to respond to this school which has been making this application for the past two years. The Lucena Clinic in Tallaght issued a psychological report on this child recently which describes his condition as autistic spectrum disorder. This entails severe receptive and expressive language disorder. The lengthy report concludes with the recommendation that the results of the assessment may be used to support the school's application for a special needs assistant for the child.

I urge the Minister of State to take note of what I have said this evening, to follow through on the school's application for a special needs assistant for this child, and to ensure that the Department will fully meet the needs of the child and the parents. This will give him the help he needs to avail of educational opportunities.

Ivor Callely (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank my good friend and fellow Clontarf man, Senator Brian Hayes, for affording me the opportunity to outline the position of the Department of Education and Science on this issue. The Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, would be here if she could but she is attending to other business.

I regret the comments made by Senator Brian Hayes because I agree that parents should not have to hit rock bottom in cases of this nature. One would like to see the necessary supports in place. We all subscribe to the principle of early intervention and the benefits it provides.

The school, which the pupil to whom the Senator referred attends, is a special school, catering for pupils with emotional difficulties. It has an enrolment of 60 pupils. The school is under the patronage of the St. John of God Order and shares a campus with the Lucena Clinic. The Lucena Clinic provides a support service to the school and the community and focuses particularly on children who have experienced trauma, abuse and-or mental health problems.

The school has the services of a principal, ten class teachers and 11 special needs assistants to cater for the care needs of the pupils in the school. The pupil teacher ratio ranges from 6:1 to 8:1 depending on the disability category of the pupils. The Department of Education and Science applied for an individual special needs assistant for the pupil in question. The Department, however, considered that it should be possible for the school to cater for this pupil's care needs from within the significant special needs assistant support already available. The school's special needs assistant allocation is in line with the recommendations of the report of the special education review committee.

The National Council for Special Education has taken over responsibility for processing resource applications for children with special educational needs. One of its specific functions in this regard is responsibility for making decisions on applications for special needs assistant support. Under these new arrangements, the council, through the local special educational needs organiser, processes applications for special educational needs supports and informs schools of the outcome.

In the case of decisions on resource teaching and special needs assistant support, the special educational needs organiser outlines the process to both the school and the parents of the child involved, where appropriate, and will at the end of the process outline the basis on which the decision was made. Officials at the Department of Education and Science are making arrangements for the local special educational needs organiser to examine the application to which the Senator referred. The special educational needs organiser will visit the school at the earliest opportunity.

The Senator referred to the Minister's commitment to address the issue of education for those with special needs. The Department is anxious to ensure that special education support services are properly targeted at the children who require them and that the substantially increased resources being made available in the special educational area have the desired effect of ensuring that all children assessed as having special needs receive the support they require. I hope this clarifies the position for the Senator and that there is a successful and speedy outcome to the case he has raised. I will discuss the matter with the Minister and will keep an eye on developments.