Maire Devine (Sinn Fein)
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Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit chuig an Seanad. It is timely that he is taking this Commencement matter on World Autism Awareness Day and I thank him for coming into the House.

This morning, I joined a group of approximately 40 parents and grandparents in Crumlin, Dublin 12. We have been campaigning for quite a long time for extensions to the services provided for their children. Many of them do not have any services for their children and are relying on home tuition, which is not ideal. If they were lucky, some of them were offered places located miles away in the expectation that a five year old child would take a bus to Maynooth and back again. That is just not feasible. We need to act urgently in this regard.

In terms of this Commencement matter, schools are under a statutory obligation to provide education appropriate to students' needs and ensure the educational needs of all students, including those with a disability, are identified and provided for. That is a statutory obligation on our Government and on the Minister. We know also that there are guidelines for primary and post-primary schools. However, the challenge remains in terms of resourcing and equipping our teachers to deliver on the many expectations placed on them.

One primary teacher I spoke to recently is passionate and dedicated to her role but in her four years of teacher training she was given the bare minimum to deal with pupils with additional needs. The story is replicated when we look at the situation around individual education plans, IEPs, for teenagers with Down's syndrome. The teachers unions - the ASTI and the TUI - advised members recently to stop providing these critical planning processes for children with additional educational needs due to resource issues. IEPs are vital to ensure a positive learning environment for students with Down's syndrome but teachers and, more importantly, the young people themselves are caught in the middle between expectations without adequate support.

It is essential and a no-brainer that our children should have a dynamic, adaptable and inclusive schooling environment that is mindful of their needs. What exactly is the current training offered to teachers? How do we know it is sufficient to meet the needs of our children? How is it evaluated or monitored?

Several teachers spoke bravely and in depth about the pressures they feel in managing their large class sizes with so many individual needs. How do we intend to ensure that teachers' mental health and well-being is monitored within this context of improving responses to additional needs and mainstream education?

The Minister of State knows that there are autism spectrum disorder, ASD, units but they are not adequate. They are excellent when they operate well but our objective would be to move children on to mainstream schooling and have them included and not excluded. The loud, clear and proud chant from the parents this morning was education, not discrimination. It is the education system we need to focus on, one that will equip, enable and support teachers to provide for the individual needs of their pupils in their large classes. That includes those with autism.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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On behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills, who sends his regrets, I thank the Senator for raising this matter and for her sincere interest in this very important subject.

Inclusive education is a fundamental principle of our education and training system. This principle is put into practice in the policies of the Department and the Teaching Council. That is clearly articulated, for example, in the quality frameworks for primary and post-primary schools, which is entitled Looking at Our School, 2016. These frameworks provide a comprehensive picture of quality teaching and learning and quality leadership and management to schools and teachers.

Under section 38 of the Teaching Council Act, all initial teacher education programmes in Ireland that lead to registration must have professional accreditation from the Teaching Council. The mandatory requirements for accreditation are set out in the Teaching Council's criteria and guidelines for programme providers, which were published in June 2011 and revised in March 2017.Under these criteria, student teachers in all accredited programmes are required to undertake study of inclusive education, including special education, and this applies to all primary and post-primary teachers. In 2017, the Department published guidelines for primary and post-primary schools supporting students with special educational needs, which provide guidance to schools on the use, organisation and deployment of additional teaching resources for students with special educational needs. In addition to developing and reviewing their whole school policies on the education and inclusion of students with special educational needs, schools should be proactive in providing continuing professional development, CPD, for their teachers. The support service of the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, delivers a range of professional development initiatives and support for teachers working with students with special educational needs. Moreover, all the Department's support services, such as the professional development service for teachers, are required by the Department to have regard to the individual needs of all learners, in designing and delivering CPD for teachers.

The Department's policy on school setting is that children with special educational needs should be included in mainstream placements with additional supports provided, unless such a placement would not be in their best interest or in the interests of the children with whom they are to be educated. Most children with additional needs attend mainstream classes but some require the environment of a special class or special school. This decision is based on a recommendation contained within a professional assessment in consultation with the NCSE. Through its network of special education needs organisers, the NCSE is responsible for the development, delivery and co-ordination of education services to children with special educational needs, including the establishment of special class and special school placements. Where parents have been unsuccessful in enrolling their child in a school placement, they should update their local organiser to inform the planning process.

The Teaching Council is in the process of reviewing and redrafting its criteria and standards for initial teacher education programmes at primary and post-primary level. The new edition of the policy draws on research findings, including recommendations and implications cited in a commissioned research report on school placement.

Maire Devine (Sinn Fein)
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I am interested in the Minister of State's comment on the review of the policy. Will he or the relevant officials email me with an update on it and on when it will happen? It is an urgent matter. The Department should examine the waiting lists and the desperation of parents because the current teacher training is inadequate and is not fit for purpose for the number of children whom teachers are being asked to teach and take responsibility for. We know that mainstreaming in school is the best option and outcome for children.

Later in the Dáil, a Sinn Féin motion on autism empowerment strategy is to be debated. While it is a detailed motion, the crux of it is that we are calling for an all-party Oireachtas committee on autism to be set up in the immediate term and for it to be tasked with developing and publishing a comprehensive autism empowerment strategy within six months. I ask all colleagues to support the motion. In the meantime, we cannot allow children to be offered placements miles away from their home. They need to remain in their communities rather than being isolated or alienated from them, because they will be the communities' next leaders. The children's families, including their grannies and their support network, will live in those communities and the children will determine how their communities progress, but they will not be able to do so when their childhood takes place away from where they grow up.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I will ask officials from the Department of Education and Skills to convey to the Senator the information she has requested. A range of in-service professional development supports has been provided to teachers by the Department since March 2017. The NCSE support service has a remit to develop schools' capacity to include students with special educational needs and to promote a continuum of inclusive and responsive education provision. In addition, as the Senator will be aware, the Department provides funding support for teachers to expand their capacity through courses at the Middletown Centre for Autism and through funded postgraduate qualification provision at a number of higher education institutions for teachers involved in learning support and special education. I agree with the Senator that pupils with special needs should stay in their own communities as much as possible, and I note her point.