Marie Moloney (Labour)
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I thank the Minister, Deputy Quinn, for taking the time to come to the House to deal with this issue. To me, education is a right, not a privilege. It is important to give children the very best possible start in life. When one of these children has a physical disability but a perfect IQ, we need to make a special effort to bring out the best in that child.

The young child to whom I refer today has a perfect IQ for his age but he is non-verbal and communicates mostly with his eyes because this is the most voluntarily controllable part of his body for technological use. A number of low-tech methods are used to enable him to communicate, namely, an icon board and symbols or photos, a Big Mac switch and a step-by-step communicator. While switch technology has been trialled with this child, he does not have the motor control to time his hits and, therefore, using a single switch scanning method for selecting options on a screen would be very difficult and very frustrating for this child from a communication perspective.

Various Eyegaze technological devices have been trialled over the past two years with this young child, and this has proven to be most beneficial in the sense that he can select voluntarily for himself for the first time options on a screen in front of him. This opens huge potential for him in the future for both communication and learning.

This young boy's parents have had to constantly fight for his rights since the day he was born. For example, they applied for a grant to renovate their house and add a special unit for their son. They got the grant from the council but when they went to claim back the VAT, because the occupational therapist had not put it in writing before they applied, they were refused and lost out on approximately €12,000 in VAT.

They then went to put their child into school, only to be told by the school principal that she was not willing to take him and felt he would be too difficult to manage. The classroom teacher also felt that the child could not keep up with the other children, who move very quickly. The parents were in absolute shock and did not know what to do. Luckily, they found a school ten miles away, in a town the Minister will know well, but this means they must now make two 20-mile round trips a day. In addition, because it is not his local school, he cannot get school transport. They are now fighting the Department of Education and Skills for this facility. When the Department refused them, they then went to the HSE but it has refused them. They are totally frustrated with fighting red tape and bureaucracy since the child was born.

It is incumbent on us, as a Government, to ensure this child is helped and that the best is brought out in him. The only way he can communicate is with the assistance of Eyegaze technology. The Ombudsman ruled last week on a very similar case which found in favour of a child who had not received assistive technology and found that the Department should have provided that technology. I am sure the Minister is au fait with the case. Before the parents in this case decide to go down the road of contacting the Ombudsman, I said I would have one more try with the Minister, which is why I am here today. I plead with the Minister to approve this technology for this child. Without it, he is lost.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I am pleased to have been given the opportunity by Senator Moloney to clarify the position in regard to the provision of assistive technology support for children with special educational needs. The assistive technology scheme is administered by the Department of Education and Skills and has a specific purpose, as set out Circular M14/05, which is to provide assistive technology support to children who have been diagnosed as having serious physical or communicative disabilities to the degree which makes ordinary communication through speech and-or writing impossible for them. The original aim of the assistive technology scheme was to provide equipment for visually and hearing impaired children to access the curriculum. In recent years, this has been extended to also provide other equipment for pupils with physical and communicative disabilities.

The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, through its network of local special educational needs organisers, SENOs, is responsible for processing applications from schools for special educational needs supports. SENOs also make recommendations to the Department where assistive technology is required.

In order to qualify for equipment under the assistive technology scheme, a child must have been diagnosed with a physical or communicative disability and must also have a recommendation in a professional assessment that the equipment is essential in order to allow the child to access the curriculum. It must also be clear that the existing IT equipment in the school is insufficient to meet the child's needs. In such circumstances, the NCSE may recommend the provision of assistive technology support and a grant for the recommended equipment may be paid to the school by the Department of Education and Skills.

The policy of the Department in regard to the assistive technology scheme is that it does not normally provide for communication devices, which have a general application other than a specific educational application, for which funding is provided for under the HSE aids and appliances scheme. The Department's scheme provides for equipment which is specifically required to access the educational curriculum, as opposed to general communication devices.

In regard to the pupil in question, I can advise that funding has been sanctioned under the Department's assistive technology scheme for this pupil towards the cost of a range of equipment and software. In September 2011, the Department sanctioned a grant of €1,525 to the school concerned for the purchase of a laptop computer, associated software and a printer-scanner for this pupil. I understand that an application was also made to the NCSE for the provision of Eyegaze technology. However, the NCSE did not make a recommendation to the Department for the provision of this equipment on the basis that this is a communication device.

I wish to clarify that grants for communication devices are provided under the aids and appliances scheme which is operated by the HSE. Funding is dispersed by local HSE services to local community care clinics or voluntary agencies for this purpose.

Applications for equipment of this nature should therefore be made to the HSE aids and appliances scheme.

I would be interested if the Senator could inform me whether she is aware that such an application has been made to the HSE.

Marie Moloney (Labour)
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The application was made and refused.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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If that is the case, all I can suggest is that we might work together to see if we can appeal this to the appropriate authorities.

Marie Moloney (Labour)
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I thought there was no appeals system in place for this. One of the recommendations in the Ombudsman's report was that there should be an appeals system for the likes of this.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I am prepared to open up an appeal in this specific case to see what we can do because of what the Senator has described.

Marie Moloney (Labour)
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Excellent. I thank the Minister and appreciate his remarks.