Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 19 Sep 2024

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— over 10,000 children are waiting for an Assessment of Need (AON) and 110,000 are awaiting essential therapies;

— over 120 children were without a school place at the beginning of September this year, while many more are forced to do a third year in the Early Childhood Care and Education Programme or are in Autism Spectrum Disorder preschools;

— only 1,028 out of 3,300 primary schools have autism classes, and only 410 out of 710 post primary schools have autism classes;

— all children deserve an appropriate education in their own community and no child should be left behind;

— the Health Service Executive (HSE) are not providing AONs in the legally mandated time frame as set out in the Disability Act 2005, with the result that 25 families a month on average are compelled to go to court to force the State to provide an AON;

— the National Council for Special Education and the Department of Education are also not providing all children with an education as provided for in the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004;

— a third of all primary schools were allocated less Special Education Teacher (SET) and Special Needs Assistant (SNA) resources this year than last year, and SNA allocations in mainstream education have been frozen for the last number of years;

— over 1,000 children with disabilities were without transport at the beginning of September this year, and €78.9 million was spent in 2023 bussing almost 20,000 pupils with disabilities out of their locality to special classes/schools;

— thousands of children are left without the summer programme every year as many schools do not offer this service, 45 per cent of special schools did not run the programme this year;

— Children's Disability Network Teams have an average vacancy rate for therapists of over 30 per cent nationally, this rises to around 40 per cent for occupational therapists, 70 per cent for dietitians, 70 per cent for play therapists, and Chamber House in Dublin 24 has a 50 per cent vacancy rate and St Columba's in Crumlin has a 60 per cent vacancy rate;

— while the 83 proposed actions of the Government's newly published Autism Innovation Strategy are an acknowledgment of the challenges facing autistic people, the strategy fails to address the immediate and urgent needs of families and children with special educational needs;

— despite the strategy's focus on creating an "autism-affirming society" and improving access to public services, parents remain concerned about the lack of appropriate school placements for this academic year;

— parents and campaign groups also question the timing of the strategy's release, which they see as a cynical attempt by the Government to deflect from the growing anger among parents as the new school year begins; and while the Government promises future improvements, many families are currently in crisis, struggling to secure basic educational rights for their children; and

— parents and campaigners have indicated that they will continue to escalate their recent protest actions until they are heard and meaningful solutions are offered; and

calls on the Government to:

— establish a centralised database from the moment a child is diagnosed to provide better data tracking and forward planning for a child's needs;

— implement a comprehensive plan for staff retention across the relevant services addressing, in particular, pay and conditions;

— introduce emergency measures to ensure full staffing of Children's Disability Network Teams and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, including speeding up the recruitment and recognition of the qualifications of international candidates for therapists;

— double the number of places available in universities for therapeutic courses;

— ensure that AONs are carried out and recommended supports and therapies given within the legal timeframe; according to the HSE at least an additional 375 clinicians are needed just to clear AON waiting lists for children with autism and ensure that the timelines for AONs outlined in the Disability Act 2005 are met;

— ensure delivery of adequate training and support for teachers, SETs and SNAs;

— implement a comprehensive plan to rapidly reduce and clear waiting lists for services;

— implement emergency action to provide appropriate school places for all those who need them now;

— provide the necessary supports in schools for children who are currently unsupported by getting rid of the SET allocation model and trust schools and parents to know the supports needed by their children, and allocate SETs and SNAs according to this principle; begin by increasing the number of SNAs by 2,000 and the number of SET posts by 1,000;

— invest in education to ensure that every school in the State has an autism class and every school offers a summer programme;

— remove all barriers to further education for those in allied health and education professions;

— immediately ratify the Optional Protocol of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities;

— supply non-means tested universal payments that cover the real costs of having a disability and provide income security to disabled people;

— introduce a guaranteed living wage for carers that is not means tested, and protect these supports with a new constitutional amendment to assert equality for disabled people;

— guarantee and safeguard these supports with a constitutional amendment to guarantee all necessary supports needed to fully engage in society as a basic democratic right;

— implement the Therapies in Schools plan as per the fully staffed pilot scheme and recruit dedicated trained staff accordingly; and

— invest an additional €2.5 billion/massively expand funding for disability payments and services in 2025; this should be the first year of a transformational multi-year programme to end exclusion and poverty for disabled people and ensure no one is left behind.

I am sharing time with Deputies Gino Kenny and Barry.

I thank and pay tribute to the campaigners who have been able to join us in the Public Gallery and the many campaigners who are at home and unable to join us but are watching online, on Oireachtas TV or wherever else. Their perseverance, strength and courage to keep fighting for their children in the face of adversity are keeping this issue on the political agenda and will ultimately mean that we will be successful. We need to keep this up.

It is undeniable that the way children with additional needs are being treated is a national disgrace. I am confident it is such a disgrace that, in years to come, a Taoiseach will stand over there making a State apology for how these children were so badly failed by the State. The problem is that that will not be much use when we are where we are today. It does not do anything for the almost 10,000 children who are overdue assessments of need. It does nothing for the 110,000 children who are waiting for necessary interventions and therapies or for the almost 10,000 children of those who are waiting simply for a first contact from their CDNTs. It does nothing for the hundreds of children who remain without appropriate school places. It does nothing for the 25 families who are forced every single month to take the State to court, with the State using taxpayers' money to fight against them, just to get their basic legal entitlements. It does nothing for the thousands of children who are transported across the State in the morning and afternoon daily at a total cost of almost €100 million per year because there are no appropriate school places for them locally. We could stop all of that now. Instead of waiting for a humble and sorrowful apology in the future, we could act on some of the proposals in this motion and stop leaving these children behind.

There was a moving piece in the Irish Examiner a couple of days ago by a journalist, Mr. Joe Fogarty, who wrote about his experience of having a daughter with autism. He wrote:

A hearing test just before her second birthday in 2020 didn’t show up any issues. The following year, we applied for an Assessment of Need (AON) and in September 2021 secured a cancellation appointment .... It was one of the infamous 90-minute meetings that lasted less than an hour.

The report produced by that review team found that she needed to be assessed for autism .... Her service statement, which was to follow the report within a month, we had to seek through an upheld complaint and a subsequent appeal when that complaint initially went unheeded. We didn’t receive it until May last year.

Almost three years on from her preliminary assessment that found Grace required the aforementioned interventions, she has received none of them from the CDNT except for the assessment which diagnosed her autism, something we also had to fight for, so she could access a preschool suitable to her needs.

This is not an unusual story; it is an extremely common one. I am in touch with many parents who are in this precise situation. I was just speaking a moment ago to a woman who first had contact in 2020 and is being told she will not get any services until 2026. Tens of thousands of families are waiting for necessary interventions.

We can all say that this is terrible and should not happen, and that is what we will hear, but why? At the bottom of this issue, although the Government will not admit it, is that there are political choices. Consider how hard this State under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael fought for years for Apple, one of the richest and most powerful corporations in the world, to have the right not to pay any taxes and contrast that with the lack of resources and lack of fight for the most vulnerable children in our society. There has been a series of horrific political choices. It was a choice not to have appropriate school places and special classes in every school. There are schools that have said they would be happy to have special classes but cannot find the staff. There are major vacancies in CDNTs across the country. One of the impressive campaigners I have met through this work compiled via FOIs a full list of every CDNT to establish the number of vacancies. This is horrific. Some of the highlights - or, rather, lowlights - in our motion set out an average vacancy rate of over 30% nationally, rising to approximately 40% for occupational therapists, 70% for dietitians and 70% for play therapists, with particular problem spots in certain CDNTs, for example, a 50% vacancy rate at Chamber House and a 60% vacancy rate at St. Columba's in Crumlin. It is a choice not to have sufficient special needs assistants. I could go on.

The Government would be making a grave mistake were it to underestimate the affected families and their will to attend public meetings, mobilise outside the Dáil next week with Cara Darmody and make this a key election issue. The Government would be wise to act now instead of trying to plámás them and hope this goes away.

We have had this debate continuously during my time in the House, and I have been a Deputy for eight and a half years. Unfortunately, we will continue to have this debate until the issue is resolved. It has not been resolved by any means. The brutal truth is that more than 120 children had no school place in September. A state providing a child with a school place seems elementary. I will not make this personal, but at a time when the State is awash with money, someone has to ask whether, if this is not about money, it is about bad planning. Someone is to blame when a child cannot find a school place. These are simple things.

If the child does not get a place, it has a knock-on effect on the child and the family. Home-schooling is sometimes not appropriate. It is a failure - I use that word sensitively - of the State if it cannot provide them with school places. This has a knock-on effect on assessments of need and the consequent therapies. There is the bizarre situation of families having to take the State to court over the State breaching the Disability Act 2005. Laws are made in the Oireachtas and enacted so that they can work, but the Disability Act does not work where assessments of need are concerned. If families have to go to the High Court to make the State provide these therapies and assessments, then something is dramatically wrong.

I wish to touch on the solutions we are proposing. There are a number of solutions where the considerable vacancies in children's disability network teams are concerned. Vacancies of 40% to 50% will have a knock-on effect, with people having to wait years in some cases. If they have the money, they will go private, but these are expensive therapies.

The knock-on effect from the top affects the most vulnerable children in our society. That is just not good enough when this country is awash with money - we do not know what to do with the money. With money, forbearance and planning, we could ensure this is not allowed to happen. This does not have to happen.

Children should have a place to go to school. Families, come September, should not have to worry about having a place for their child. With proper planning and choice, this problem can be solved. I do not know whether the Government has the stomach to solve that problem, but when children do not have places in school and there is a knock-on effect, somebody somewhere does not have the stomach to solve this problem.

I would like to use my time to try to give voice to the rage and heartbreak felt by parents across the country about the situation that the Government has allowed to develop. I will quote people from Cork to whom I have spoken today.

Jimmy Lordan, a parent who wants to send his son for an assessment of need, has been told that they will have to wait two to two and half years. He said as a parent that it is beyond frustrating to be met with wall after wall and that his health is definitely deteriorating due to stress, worry and feeling helpless. He went on to say that HSE waiting lists of two and a half to three years for autism assessments mean early intervention is not an option, even for those who have money. He is willing to pay €2,500 for an assessment, but there are no private clinics available because the HSE has block booked them to try to clear waiting lists. He asked whether, in the event he went to the UK to get an assessment, he could use that to speed up the process and access therapies and services for his son, but was told that would not be recognised. There is no public or private option or overseas option. Basically, his only option is to wait until it is too late and early intervention is gone.

A Cork mother has also been told to wait two and two and half years for an assessment for her son. She told me that what is most infuriating and heartbreaking about having a neurodivergent child in Ireland is knowing that the science is clear. With early intervention, real progress can be made and have a life-changing impact. Despite this fact, the HSE erases that potential by refusing to provide resources that can allow our children to thrive.

There are more than 10,000 children across the State awaiting assessment of need. In Cork alone, there are 765 children and in my area, Cork North Lee, there are 338 children awaiting assessment. Cara Dermody, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from County Tipperary, who is a campaigner for disability rights, along with her father, Mark, met the Minister, Roderic O'Gorman, this afternoon. I spoke to Mark after the meeting. He told me that the Minister told them he cannot commit to stopping the HSE from breaking the assessment of needs law in the next 12 months. He went on to say that the Minister, who they respect, does not have a short-term solution, so the pain and suffering of thousands of families continues.

The Government seems to be flying blind on this issue. Mark said it was not a good day for special needs kids. Cara, of course, is calling on people to unite by assembling in Molesworth Street next Thursday, 26 September, at 11 a.m. for a rally putting forward the demand for an end to the underfunding of autism and disability services in this budget. I call on people to join that protest. I also put on the record of the House that there will be a protest in Cork on Saturday, 28 September, assembling at 3 p.m. outside the library in Grand Parade to support demands of this kind. I urge people in Cork to attend the protest and any other protests taking place around the country in the run-up to the budget aimed at putting the Government under pressure on these issues. Cara uses a phrase that has been popularised by Greta Thunburg in the climate movement, namely, that the Government needs to act like the house is on fire. Clearly she believes, rightly in my opinion, that it is not.

Last night, the Minister of State, Anne Rabbitte, participated in a debate with a number of Cork Deputies on a Topical Issue about St. Killian's special school on the northside of Cork city, the largest special school in Munster. It has not had a therapist since 2019. In November last year, the school was promised by the Minister that it could access €150,000 to hire therapists. That promise has not been delivered on. A pilot has since been launched. The school hoped and expected to be part of the scheme, but was not chosen. Last night, the Minister told us and, more importantly, parents and teachers from the school who watched the debate, that there would be a second tranche for the pilot programme to bring therapists back into schools. The ten schools that will be included in the second tranche will be announced at the end of October. The only way to access funds to hire therapists will be if they are part of the programme. Some progress was made in that debate, but I would make it very clear that we do not want a situation whereby schools are forced to compete against themselves on the private market in order to access therapists later this year.

One member of the St. Killian's Parents Unite campaign committee, which is an impressive group, raised an interesting point at a recent meeting, and it would be useful if it was discussed by parents of children with autism around the country. She said there are now about 200 special schools in the State and it might be a very useful thing if the parents in each of those schools elected one or two representatives and linked together to form a campaign committee to put pressure on the Government on these issues. There is a lot of merit in that idea and that is why I have mentioned it.

I will finish with a quote sent to me by Linda O'Leary, the mother of a child with special needs in Cork who has nailed this issue with her words. She said Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, in cahoots with the HSE, have systematically over the past decade withdrawn as many interventions as they could for children like hers and forced them into a complete reliance on the private system for what should be basic intervention to allow every child to reach their full potential. She went on to say that between a withdrawal of services, making it nearly impossible to qualify for domiciliary care allowance, and forcing hiring freeze after hiring freeze, the State and HSE have taken their kids' dignity and ability to reach their full potential and left many parents broken and financially and emotionally devastated by the stress of trying to make up for the State's conscious discriminatory policy-making decisions. I will leave it at that.

I thank the Deputies for raising the issues in the motion. At the outset, enabling children with special educational needs to receive an appropriate education is a priority for this Government. Since I was appointed as Minister for special education and inclusion five months ago, I have met children, their parents, teachers, SNAs and special interest groups who have provided me with invaluable insights and perspectives on the day-to-day challenges, issues and successes in special education.

Through school visits, I have seen generosity, care and compassion from entire school communities as they support, develop and nurture our young people with additional educational needs.

It makes me proud as an educator to see the progress we have made in schools in the area of special education, especially in recent years. Of course, there are very significant challenges. We all know and accept that. I reaffirm my commitment as a Minister of State to continuing to work to ensure that families and schools are supported. I am pleased to have the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on the education-related aspects of the motion and to outline some significant measures we have put in place to ensure that children and young people are supported to achieve their potential.

Regarding the issue of availability of school places, I understand and regret that some children have not yet secured a school place for this school year and that some families and students feel that our system is not working for them. This is not acceptable. It is not fair that families are put in a position of feeling they have to fight for the right to an education for their children. I am absolutely committed to improving the system we have and providing the supports needed to help every child to thrive and prosper in our education system.

It is important to state that the system works for many children. Some 250,000 children with a special educational need are accommodated in mainstream schools with supports. Approximately 28,000 children are either in a special class or a special school. We have provided 408 new special classes and four new special schools for this school year in counties Meath, Kildare, Wexford and Limerick. Since the Government came into office in 2020, more than 1,300 new special classes have been provided, bringing the total to more than 3,300. While there is spare capacity in the system, the problem is that capacity is not always close to where children live.

Throughout the summer, the Department and the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, have worked with schools to provide further special education places. The NCSE has been provided with an additional budget of €13 million so an increased number of special educational needs organisers, SENOs, can work to support schools and families. The NCSE’s work to provide additional places has focused in particular on areas in north Dublin. Additional special classes and special school capacity has been secured and places have been offered in recent days to students and will continue to be offered in the coming weeks. It is important now that these schools move quickly to offer available places to children.

The NCSE plans for places based on children known to them, where a parent has made contact to advise they have a child in need of a place. However, there is an information gap. The NCSE is not always made aware of children in need of a place. In some cases, this has resulted in new classes being populated by children already in a school and not by children waiting for a place who are known to the NCSE. While the sharing of information has improved, more work is needed in this area. That is why I have asked my Department to develop new guidelines to ensure the NCSE has information on all of the children seeking a special education placement, regardless of where they live.

Pressure for places is extremely high in some areas. That is why I have established a new task force for Dublin 15, which will work to ensure sufficient special educational placements will be provided for the next school year and beyond. This group will examine better ways to establish the level of need in the area so that school places can be provided earlier, giving families certainty and avoiding unnecessary stress. Parents tell me they have applied to ten or 20 schools. Parents should not have to do that. We want this group to examine the possibility of a common application system being introduced to reduce the burden on parents so that parents only have to apply once. These measures will help give the NCSE a clearer picture on the number of children in need of a place, thereby allowing for better planning. Once the concept is developed for Dublin 15, I expect that a national system will be developed.

I met Mr. Don Mahon, the new task force chairperson, in person yesterday and outlined my aims for the task force. The task force will contact stakeholders, including parents, school principals and patrons, to secure nominees to sit on the task force and will begin its work shortly. As part of these efforts to identify and meet the need for special educational placements earlier, better communication and information sharing between the HSE and Departments are needed when children present with conditions that affect their education or when they are not meeting developmental milestones. All this information needs to be shared earlier on children's journeys so that when they come into the education system, there is no mystery about children with additional needs.

I welcome the work being done by my Department and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to share information on children in the early years sector who are receiving additional supports. This will allow for planning for special classes or special school places to begin not months in advance as currently applies, but years in advance.

I assure families that no efforts are being spared in ensuring that special class places are provided for this year. I chair weekly meetings of the NCSE and my Department to secure places, with ongoing engagement with schools and patrons. Most schools are helpful in providing special class places. However, a very small number have to be encouraged and, in some cases instructed, to open special classes using legislative powers introduced in 2022. These powers allow the NCSE to compel a school to accept a child with special educational needs. This power was exercised twice this year. To be absolutely clear, I will not hesitate to instruct the NCSE to use these powers if a school refuses to accept a child in need of a place.

We are all aware of the increased prevalence of disabilities such as autism. We know that children have different abilities and learn in different ways and that some may require more help than others. We must and do plan for this, to provide children with a place and a clear pathway through the education system. This is an investment in our children’s future, with €2.7 billion a year - a quarter of the education budget - allocated to it. Giving children the supports they need as early as possible is vital and ensuring timely and appropriate provision of school places is the first step.

I also recognise that additional supports are required for children with special educational needs. In that regard, almost 15,000 special education teachers and 22,000 SNAs are working every day in mainstream schools to support children and young people and their learning. We have also progressed other types of support for children in schools. I was particularly pleased in June to announce the establishment of the educational therapy support service, a service designed to build the capacity of teachers and school staff to provide as effectively as possible for the needs of students. This service will see therapists working in classrooms with teachers and while the service will initially comprise 39 therapists, it is my ambition to build this service over time to ensure schools across the country have access to it.

Deputies will also be aware of a more recent announcement relating to the provision of therapy services in special schools. In conjunction with the Ministers for Education and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the programme will be provided by the HSE in 16 special schools, supported by the NCSE. The purpose of the programme is to provide the effective delivery of in-school therapy supports to children and will supplement existing services being provided by the HSE. Therapists will work on-site in schools for the full duration of the school day and the school year. School selection is based on where children with the greatest need for supports are based and where appropriate resources are not currently available to meet those needs. The number of children in the special school and the profile of need of those children will determine the therapy supports to the provided. I hope to expand this pilot so children receive the supports they need.

While the provision of appropriate therapy services is extremely important, I also recognise the importance of supporting student transitions into and from school settings. The recently launched national strategy and action plan for lifelong guidance is about helping people to make better choices about their education, career and life, through information, advice and guidance counselling services. For the first time, guidance supports are being provided in special schools. In addition, my Department is working to support children as they transition through our education system from early childhood through to primary, post-primary, further education and training and higher education or whatever the transition is for a given child. This is part of our commitment to the comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities.

We have instigated a pilot programme to improve access to, and opportunities for, post-school options, with 40 special schools taking part this school year. A second pilot transitions programme involves a collaboration between my Department and Walkinstown Association for People with an Intellectual Disability, which is currently engaging with and delivering its existing providing equal employment routes, PEER, ability programme in ten schools in Louth, Dublin, Westmeath, Cavan and Cork. The programme is supporting 170 students in their final two years in school.

There is also the towards inclusion programme. Its overarching purpose is to provide for collaboration between mainstream and special schools in teaching, learning and assessment practices. The programme seeks to break down the barriers between specialist and mainstream provision to allow for conversations at local level regarding inclusion and opportunities for collaboration. Towards Inclusion may be viewed as a foundation block in work being undertaken to develop an inclusive education system.

Despite the many challenges facing the education system, it is fair to say we are making progress. I recognise and accept that the system is not perfect. I am committed to working collectively across government to make children's lives better.

The efforts and programmes the Minister of State spoke about might make some difference. I wish that, instead of me, the parents and teachers of the children in question were here responding to what she said. They are the ones who know how the system is failing their children, despite all the efforts, promises and programmes from the Government. Like Deputy Gino Kenny said, the debates on this issue have been happening for as long as we have been in the Dáil. Every year, we find parents at their wits' end and unable to cope. They meet barrier after barrier and they and their children end up on waiting lists forever. It is one waiting list after another, whether for school admission, for assessments or for therapy appointments that often never come.

A number of parents with special needs are in the Gallery this evening. I spoke to Pamela before the debate about CHO 7, where there are nearly 6,000 people waiting for assessments to which they are legally entitled. It is absolutely critical they get those assessments as, without them, they cannot access the therapies that flow from them. From the moment the State fails a child in this way, his or her life is impacted, potentially forever. Pamela told me that between January and May, 22 assessments were done in CHO 7. It is unbelievable. Charlotte has a young daughter, Kira, who has had three assessments but will not get her first therapy appointment until 2026. Charlotte had to apply to 32 schools for her child. Rachel, who has a son with special needs and who briefs me on this issue on a regular basis, is also in the Gallery. She would say the treatment of these children is just abuse.

It is some time since the Children First guidelines were drawn up and we had a referendum on children's rights. The guidelines were very clear that if children did not get the supports and resources necessary to give them equality and to put them first - cherishing all the children equally, as was promised in the Proclamation - that failure would be a form of neglect and abuse. It is abuse and neglect by the State. People are having to go to court to vindicate their rights. Even if they do so, they still will not get the therapies their children need. A woman who spoke at the public meeting we organised in Dún Laoghaire a while ago said her daughter was first diagnosed when she was 12 or so. She is now 17 and, in all that time, she has had two therapies in the form of two meetings with an occupational therapist. It is just unbelievable.

I got a briefing from Simon Lewis, whom the Minister of State probably knows, earlier this summer. He detailed how one third of schools actually lost special education teachers this year under the new allocation model. We have heard about this problem previously but it is incredible that it is still an issue after all these years. This happened because the Department of Education did not plan for and did not resource the required provision. One of the parents who briefed us the other day - I think it was Pamela - noted that this is not rocket science. We have the CSO statistics. We know almost exactly how many children there will be coming into the education system. We know what proportion of children have disabilities and special needs. Therefore, it should be possible to have the necessary provision in place for all of them by way of school places, resources and supports. This is a country that has record budget surpluses and is overflowing with revenues. The State has so much money it literally does not know what to do with it. The Government is putting the money away in future funds and all the rest of it. In the here and now, however, 120 children do not have school places at the beginning of this school year. The State is having to pay some €70 million a year to transport children with special needs to schools in other parts of the country. This arrangement is totally unsuitable. It puts parents under massive pressure in terms of time available to see their children and the transport costs involved in attending a school that is way out of their own locality. It is incredible.

I can go through the list of schools in my area where problems are arising. Dún Laoghaire Educate Together National School lost one special education teacher this year, leaving only one still in post. The school does not have a permanent premises. It is currently operating between a community centre and another location with prefabricated classrooms. This means it needs two special education teachers but, because of the allocation model, it only has one. The school simply cannot provide the education its pupils need. Sallynoggin Killiney Educate Together National School has asked repeatedly for a second autism class. It is one of the schools that actually wants to provide another autism class; some other schools are resisting making such provision. The school is saying it can provide a second class but the Department will not approve it.

The result of this is stories like that of Aisling, who is an SNA in Dún Laoghaire Educate Together National School. She has one child with special educational needs in Monkstown Educate Together National School and another in Sallynoggin Killiney Educate Together National School. There are not sufficient places in any of these schools to accommodate both children. Aisling is affected by this at every level. There are others on the waiting list who simply cannot get into a school. At Dalkey School Project National School, only one out of four special education teacher posts is filled. At Monkstown Educate Together National School, two teachers recently left. One of them, a special education teacher, left because the commute times were too much and the cost of housing and accommodation in the area is too high. That teacher just could not stay in the job. As a result, the one remaining special education teacher now has to go into a mainstream class to cover the other teacher who left, who was a mainstream teacher, which means the children with special needs lose out altogether. It is a disaster.

This situation can and should have been planned for before it happened. We know the numbers. They do not change that much. We have failed to plan, which leads to a fire-fighting exercise of doing a bit here and a bit there. We are moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic.

We could say the same about the CDNTs, CAMHS and the massive understaffing of these areas where we need to recruit thousands of therapists, psychologists and so on - the allied professionals - because we are so chronically understaffed and under-resourced in these areas. There is, however, no urgency in terms of recruitment or to address the issues of pay and conditions and housing or even the issue that was brought to me recently and that I did not know about, SNAs who get injured in the course of their work. They cannot work any more but they are not given any sort of financial assistance after a period, after getting injured doing their work. It is shocking.

We are supposed to be signatories to the UNCRPD, which is about equality, not that we should really need that because it is in the Proclamation that founded this country. We are failing to provide that equality. It is as simple as that. We are failing even to plan for it and we are doing so at a time when we have more resources and more wealth in this country than we have ever had before. As a result, some of our most vulnerable children are being failed and their parents are at their wits' end. It is not fair. The Government has to use the resources available to it to give the rights and equality that every single child in this country deserves, whether it is the school places, the education, the resources, the supports, the health supports, the therapies they need or housing. I have not even had time to go into the latter and how the housing crisis is impacting children with special needs in particular.

I could go on, but it is the people up in the Gallery whom the Government owes it to, as well as the many thousands out there - 100,000 waiting for therapies, thousands waiting for assessments of need, schools and teachers, SNAs and all the rest - who are under such pressure and such stress and who are so demoralised by all this. We are failing them and it has to stop.

I commend the motion and thank People Before Profit and Solidarity for bringing it forward. It is a comprehensive motion and this is a matter that has been discussed time and again here by different groups bringing it forward, yet nothing seems to change and nothing seems to improve. The Government seems to have this approach of reacting to a crisis instead of proactive planning to address the issues.

There has been quite a lot of discussion on securing appropriate school placements here. It beggars belief why this happens year after year and why there are insufficient school places for children. There are children going to preschools who go there for two years, sometimes three. They are in the AIM programme, so it is identified already that they have additional needs and need support. There needs to be better communication between the preschools and the primary schools. We need to see the NCSE engaging with parents and with the preschools at that stage and able to advise them on appropriate school placements in the children's communities such that when the children go to primary school, if they are lucky enough to get appropriate school placements in their communities, they spend eight years in those placements, the principal and the teachers in those schools know precisely what those children's needs are and what supports they require and, again, they have eight years to ensure appropriate post-primary school places in the community for those children. Yet every August we hear from distraught parents who have applied to up to 20 schools to face refusal after refusal, with no appropriate school placement, or the children are bussed miles away to find placements. It is not fair on the children and not fair on the families. The NCSE should be dealing with this. I do not know if it is a case of under-resourcing. We need more SENOs, perhaps, to engage with all the different families and the children who have additional needs.

When I was teaching, I used to engage with a SENO and she knew every child within her catchment area. She was regularly in contact with the children's families. The families had her phone number. They could lift the phone and talk to her. I talk to parents all the time and say to them, "Have you been in touch with your SENO?" They ask me, "What is that?" They do not know what a SENO is or they have no contact. That is not good enough. We need much better communication between all the different aspects of education and with the NCSE and then, obviously, with the parents.

Prior to the introduction of the progressing disabilities programme, special schools had therapists attached to them and it was so beneficial. Not only were the therapists dealing with and helping the children; the staff in the schools were learning from the therapists and the different approaches they were taking to dealing with the children. Those therapists were withdrawn. In some cases they have been returned. It just beggars belief why a pilot programme is needed in special schools when therapists worked in them at one time. The benefits are unquestionable, and we need to see therapists back in schools. In fact, we need to see them not just in the special schools but also in our mainstream schools. There was a very good pilot programme run in, I think, CHO 7 called the school inclusion model. It seemed to work very well. The therapists were put into the schools to work with them. I do not know if a proper evaluation of that pilot has been carried out or, if so, if it has been extended. I think there were plans to extend it, but it is a model that needs to be extended to all our schools, especially those which have autism classes or special classes attached to them to support the students in those settings.

Not a week goes past that I do not have contact from a parent about engagement with a CDNT. In Cavan, the CDNT has a vacancy rate of 60% while in Monaghan it is 40%. I think it is over 30% if we take the whole country. Therapists are leaving because it is just a horrible place to work as they are not getting to do their job within the CDNT because they are constantly dealing with - and they do not blame them - irate parents coming to them looking for services for their children or looking for assessments of need. Almost 10,000 children are overdue an assessment of need at this stage. More than 9,000 children are awaiting their initial contact with a CDNT. This is at crisis point and needs to be addressed. What we have are therapists leaving the CDNTs and going into private practice. Then the HSE pays them big money to carry our private assessments. It does not make any sense. They should be working within the public sector. Why are they not? We need to address that point. Is it pay? Section 39 pay parity still has not been addressed. I am not saying that is the only issue; it is one of them. Conditions within the CDNTs are another, as is proper support. I had a parent in contact with me this week. When her child was 18 months old, she requested an assessment. She still has not received that assessment. The child is now four. That is not fair.

I realise I am going over my time. This needs to be addressed, and I fully support the motion.

I commend People Before Profit on tabling this motion and allowing us to have a debate on this important issue. I was first elected to the Seanad in 2011, and one of the earliest debates I took part in was on children's disability services. All the challenges that were outlined in that debate and all the asks that were made of the Government at the time are again contained in this motion because nothing much has changed. In fact, the only thing that has changed is the number of children waiting. Now almost 10,000 children are waiting for an assessment of need and 110,000 are awaiting essential therapies.

It is easy to see why parents of children with disabilities would be cynical of politics. In 2005, people who were elected to sit in this Chamber and legislate legislated to confer on children with disabilities certain rights under the 2005 Disability Act. Legally, a child has a right to an assessment of need within six months. We, the Oireachtas, decided, on behalf of the State, that this was a legal right that those children had and that that assessment of need would be full and comprehensive and would set out the health and the educational needs of the child. That never happened. Most children have not got their assessment of need within six months. As we know, and as the motion points out, every day parents are going to court to have their children's rights vindicated. We decided, as a political system, that we would confer rights on children with disabilities and then ignore them.

Worse than that, however, and in a very cynical way, the State then put in place a yellow-pack assessment of need, changed the standard operating procedure and pretended that it was reducing the waiting list, providing a lesser assessment of need. Again, the High Court examined that and said, "I am sorry, that is not the assessment of need under the Act." It set it aside, and what have we seen? The waiting lists have gone up since. That was very callous and was obviously not a way to treat people with disabilities.

I do not have much more time, so I will conclude by saying this. One could wallpaper this Chamber with the amount of debate we have had on disability services, but since 2005 we have failed those children.

Unless we take a rights-based approach and put the capacity in rather than trying to take shortcuts and deprive children of their needs, I fear we are going to have many more debates like the ones we are having here and fail many more children with disabilities.

While there are a lot of failures this Government is overseeing, the failures in disability services are probably the single greatest failure. Like all the other failures, what we get from the Taoiseach is soundbites rather than solutions.

My experience of dealing with families in Monaghan is a familiar story, from listening to other Deputies. Families are waiting far too long for an assessment of needs. When they get through that particular hurdle, they are waiting far too long for occupational therapy appointments, speech and language therapies and for all the myriad of other supports their children need. There are long waiting lists and waiting times, with people being moved from one centre to another. There is no consistency in terms of the times available. Parents are then forced to pay out of their own pocket to get the therapy for their children. Other parents simply do not have the money to pay out of their own pocket. Despite assurances previously given, the Government is providing no mechanism for those families to be reimbursed to give them some hope.

County Monaghan, as I have said many times in this House, is one of two countries that has no special school despite it being clearly evident there is a need for one. What we get from the Ministers is promises of reviews. There is no need for a review. We have no permanent respite services. In June, I raised these issues with Simon Harris in the Dáil. I had one ask of him, that is, to meet the affected families from County Monaghan. Although he committed he would meet the families, like with so many other issues, that still has not taken place. I received an email in August saying he is trying to find a date in between his festival going. The lived reality of these families is that they have to fight and battle every single day and year. A group home in Carrickmacross was promised in 2006. It was finally built in 2016 and opened in 2022 – 16 years later. Of course, the members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael showed up for the photo opportunity despite being nowhere to be seen in the long campaign. Likewise, when parents battling for a full permanent respite centre got a temporary respite centre, Fianna Fáil representatives came out of the woodwork with their photo opportunities and their videos and all the rest of it.

The parents of children with disabilities in County Monaghan do not need TDs or Oireachtas Members who will be there on the good days. They need this House, and all elected representatives, to be there on the good and bad days. They need us to end the bad days by, in the first instance, ensuring we recognise that families of children with disabilities have been treated disgracefully. It needs to stop and we need to change the system.

Absolutely no aspects of supports for children with additional needs are working. There is absolutely no section of it working. I have with me a letter given to me by a constituent of mine just before the summer recess which confirms there was a 72-month waiting list for services in the CDNT in Dublin 15. That is a six-year waiting list. That is absolutely and utterly shocking and shameful in this day and age. The parents stood in this building, and outside this building, just before the summer recess campaigning for school places. They met with the two Ministers of State on several occasions and were assured that, first of all, the NCSE would have their details, be in regular contact and help them get a school place. It turns out that is not quite what happened for all of them. What was feared at the time was that some would get places but others would not. That has come to pass. There are approximately 120 children across the State with no school places as we speak. Unfortunately, these children have been let down time and time again.

I was contacted by parents who received school places over the summer. While they were absolutely exhausted, they were joyful they got school places. They were deeply angry, however, because they knew there were others who were not going to get school places. They stood side by side with the parents, some of whom are here today, and they will continue to stand side by side with them to ensure no child is left behind.

What is really shameful about all of this is that it was predicted. In 2019, I stood with hundreds of people in the Carlton Hotel in Tyrrelstown when we were campaigning for a special school, Danu Community Special School, which was eventually opened. One of the key demands at that time was that although this cohort of students are going to be sorted, we should not forget the ones who are coming behind them. That was in 2019. Every single year since, those children have been let down despite promises that would not happen. The NCSE and the Government failed to plan.

I was glad to hear the Minister of State say there is a task force and parents are going to be involved in it. Do we really need a task force, however?

It is a failure of everyone who has been involved in this service through the years if a simple thing like getting children who need a school place into schools cannot be done. We are paying people extremely good wages to do their job. They should be doing it. It is incredible that we have to set up a task force to do that. Let us give them the time and energy, however. They do not have much time. September 2025 is coming to us.

I want to mention Danu Community Special School, which has 12 school places. It was promised a school building that was supposed to come in before Christmas. There is also an issue relating to the HSE and the WTE hours that were allocated to it. I will send the letter on to the Ministers of State. I ask them to have a look at that and to have a chat about it soon.

I thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for bringing this motion forward. I listened to a lot of the speakers and the opening statement of the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton. Last year, in June 2023, the autism committee published a final report with 109 recommendations. The blueprint for success is there. There are 87 more of those recommendations to be implemented. They deal with everything from school transport to respite care to summer provision. You name it, it is there. The blueprint has been done by an autism committee made up of all parties and none. I recommend the Government looks at that. That is the blueprint.

I am not even going to touch on the issue of the assessments of need because it absolutely disgusts me. What the HSE has done to get through the loopholes is absolutely sickening and it should be ashamed of itself.

The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, mentioned planning and advance planning and so on. We all have a constituency dashboard. We have all the information every time a census comes out. I can go to the webpage for my constituency in east Cork and look up Ballyhooly or Ballinacurra to find out how many children have autism and what their age groups are. You can forward plan for five, ten or 15 years. Deputy Tully mentioned it a while ago; it is known when they went to baby school and primary school. That is setting out the charter already. I hate when we have to talk about the lack of services for people. Those who are the most vulnerable are the ones who are being let down the most. Families are absolutely stressed off the head.

School transport and disability transport has been an utter shameful disgrace again this year. I am black and blue from raising it since 2016. I congratulate the party for bringing this motion forward.

I commend People Before Profit-Solidarity. I wish to speak about a young boy in my own county by the name of Josh. His local special school could not take him on the basis that his needs were outside its remit as his condition was termed moderate to severe. Incidentally, this is the school his brother also attends. Unfortunately, this contradicts the Department’s notion that a child’s designation should not be a reason for the child not being accepted into a school.

Another school was eventually identified to his mother, Sabrina, but the surroundings in which Josh would have been placed were wholly unsuitable. It is just a room, with windows that are easily accessible. Josh is a flight risk. It is near a road and does not have a quiet area, sensory garden or any other additions needed to make it in any way suitable or acceptable to him. There is also a deficit in the teacher and SNA to pupil ratio. It is wholly unsuitable. The school is effectively being forced to use this unsuitable room to cater to the demand the Government has not provided for.

In addition, the parents were told the school would only get funding to make it suitable if Josh actually attends the school first. His parents say that one experience of those surroundings would ensure he would never tolerate any suggestion of returning. Why is the Department doing this backwards? Why can the Department not ensure schools have the facilities to take the children first, rather than forcing children into unsuitable spaces before they are made safe? It defies logic. Why could the first school Josh’s parents applied to not be facilitated? That school would be more suitable anyway. Why will the Minister of State not engage with the family about this?

Sabrina met the Taoiseach recently. He made all the right sounds, but there has been nothing from him, his office or anybody else since. I appeal to the Minister of State to engage with the family, who have no school to send their son to and who are being ignored by the Department. I also appeal to the Minister of State to revise the wholly inappropriate measure of forcing a child into unsuitable surroundings before any move is made to improve matters. I have the family's details and have emailed them to the Minister of State. I remind her that she said any family associated with the NCSE would have a school place by September. She claims she is committed to improving circumstances for families. She should please do the right thing for Josh and his mother, Sabrina, and all the other families affected.

I have just been sent an email from Scoil Bhríde Shelagh, which is in north Louth. It states its main worry is that while it has had an additional school accommodation application submitted to the planning and building unit of the Department of Education since October 2023, this was put on hold after the sanctioning of its two autism classes because the Department had pulled the provision of modular buildings for the 2024-25 year. The school states that a second autism class has been sanctioned for it, and it is anxious to have the accommodation for that class provided, given the huge need in the locality. One can imagine how the letter continues. The fact that the second class has been sanctioned means it needs to be provided. There needs to be communication. There is a major issue with the schools building programme. If we could have that addressed, we could at least provide added resources to those with disabilities and autism in the part of my constituency in question. I would really appreciate that.

Members have already spoken about the issues that exist concerning matters from assessments right through to therapies and what children and their families cannot get. The Ministers of State present and I have spoken about the school inclusion model and the absolute necessity to offer services and therapies where needed. While we may need bespoke medical solutions for other children, these could deal with another lot.

We have all talked about assistive technologies. I am aware there has sometimes been a hold-up on the part of the HSE on these. Whether we are talking about the rapid prompting method or augmentative and alternative communication devices, we need to see it.

I sent the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, a message on a child development clinic that refers to the idea of kinesiologists and advance services. It is almost like occupational therapy and speech and language therapy on steroids in that they have a huge impact on children. These are the sorts of things we really need to consider.

I have spoken before about my Education (Amendment) Bill and the idea that schools with children with disabilities would have a two-year run-in in order that they would be able to get all their ducks in a row and ensure services for the children. We know we need to get the best bang for our buck for our children. We know that even if we improve workforce planning from here on in, it will take four or five years before we have all the OTs, SLTs and psychologists in place. Therefore, we need to ensure we have a better service and can get the best service as we strive to fill all the absolutely necessary positions. We have been talking about this forever. What we really need to see is delivery for families.

I thank People Before Profit–Solidarity for this comprehensive motion on this most important area. As Deputy Cullinane said, we could paper the walls of the Dáil with debates we have had on disability and special needs provision.

The figures on assessments of needs are stark, considerable and shameful. Just under 11,000 children are awaiting an assessment of need and 110,000 are awaiting essential therapies. Behind all these figures are individuals, children. I want to talk about Frankie Edgeworth, a beautiful boy from my constituency – an autistic boy of five years of age who cannot get a school place. Thirty schools have turned down his application. That is extremely disheartening and worrying for his parents, Shauna and Darren, both of whom suffer from very serious conditions, one with a nervous system condition and the other a functional neurological disorder. This is a family in intense need. Not only has poor Frankie not been able to get into a school but he has been refused by 43 playschools or crèches in his preschool years. As a child who is starting from a difficult position, he has not got the early years education many others can get. He is already behind. He is now not even getting his formal primary education as he approaches his sixth birthday. Unfortunately, Frankie is not alone That is why this motion is so important. It is why this issue is so pressing.

The provision of autism classes in our education system is so far behind where it needs to be. We have 3,300 primary schools in the country but only 1,028 of them, a third, provide autism classes. At many times, they are being provided due to the vigour, interest and desire of a principal and teaching staff, but we do not have a statutory basis for the provision of autism classes in all schools, or at least the vast majority of them. We may be able to accept that in a small number of cases, schools may not have space or may be too small, but the fact that one third of our primary schools have autism classes or non-autism neurodiversity classes is not good enough. Those schools that are providing the classes have a considerable responsibility in each community and are under great pressure. The classes provide help, support and education to autistic children. Pressure comes on from parents who understandably want to get their child into them. They provide a really good service. The secretaries, teachers and principals of the relevant schools feel the pressure and want to provide more classes but cannot. They are being held back from doing so.

Within certain communities, there is inconsistency of provision. In my area, Malahide, for example, no primary school has an autism class yet, whereas the secondary school has two. As we all know, admission policies are becoming more geographically based and, at least in the greater Dublin area. Children growing up in an area such as Malahide cannot get into an autism class there, so they have to go outside their catchment area to find one. Later, when they want to get into the autism class in secondary school, they cannot do so because they have gone to a primary school outside their catchment area. These are the administrative problems and issues that can be fixed to make things a little easier and make more sense for families seeking to educate their children.

As I said last night in the debate, we have been told the recruitment embargo has been lifted. Those are just empty words. The recruitment embargo in the HSE has not been lifted. There are huge lists of vacancies in disability network teams up and down the country. When there is a request to fill the vacancies, management are told they are not allowed to do so. In essence, the embargo is still in place. Nationally, the vacancy rate for therapists is 30%, and it is 40% for occupational therapists, 70% for dieticians and 70% for play therapists. These are front-line workers. These are vital therapists and therapies and these vacancies must not remain unfilled. If the Government is going to say it is lifting a recruitment embargo, it should please do so in practice.

We have spoken before about the need to ratify the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That needs to be done as a matter of urgency. I have no faith that it will be done in the lifetime of this Dáil but it must be done in the very early days of the next Government.

We could go on and on. The motion states the release in August of the autism strategy was not good timing. It was cynical timing and the strategy should have been released earlier. It should have been released a long time ago, when we were in the Dáil and able to discuss it.

Of the 18 programme for Government commitments voted on by family carers, which is the real test, four received a score of regressive, six received a score of no progress, five received a score of limited progress, three received a score of good progress, and none received a score of commitment achieved.

That is from family carers and it speaks volumes. Taking the scores that the Government reports in terms of its ability to deliver in this area and applying them to a boy like Frankie Edgeworth, who I mentioned at the start, that is the reality of failed progress and failed delivery in this area.

This is an excellent and comprehensive motion which details many complex areas in disability and special needs provision. We fully support it.

I thank People Before Profit for bringing forward an excellent, timely and powerful motion with so many meaningful suggestions. To enact even half of them would make a substantive difference to the lives of countless people the length and breadth of this country. I hope many of these measures will be reflected in the budget when it is presented to us early next month. At the heart of the motion is the struggle that so many families have to make every single day just to vindicate a basic need for their child and have it met by the State. At the heart of the motion, but not expressed, is the courage that is demonstrated by every family in the country, who have to travel to the Dáil time and again, send emails every day or get on to their schools seeking help from any and every person just to have a child's basic need met.

We are in many ways a wealthy country. That is not reflected in the services offered by the State, as motions like this every week reflect. The Tánaiste said on the radio recently that there are people in my party, Sinn Féin and People Before Profit who believe we live in a failed State. I do not think for one second any of us believe that. We believe we are living in a mismanaged state where opportunities for simple investment in urgently needed care have been not so much neglected but not achieved. That is all we ask. I appreciate that the Government might tell us that the wheels of State are difficult and so forth. However, the everyday lived reality of a child in need of an assessment of need and of follow-on care is assuredly more difficult. We would like to see a State that is willing to go beyond itself. That is at the heart of the calls not only in this motion but also that many of us will make in the coming weeks and months.

It does not feel right to attempt to summarise these shortcomings in eight minutes. Disability and special needs supports are in crisis and require dedication and long-term commitment from the Government, which we will advocate for as best we can in the time available.

In respect to assessment of need, the problems preventing families from accessing crucial assessments of need in a fair and timely manner are “systemic”. The term is deep and has meaning but it is not my word. They are the words of the disability appeals office, as well as the words of countless families around the country who are treated as an afterthought by the HSE. More than 10,000 children are waiting for an assessment of need and over 100,000 are on waiting lists for essential therapies. The HSE has an obligation to uphold the legal rights of children with disabilities, yet, out of 72 appeals the appeals office received last year, it only got around to processing 44. That is an extraordinary figure. No child should have to wait for a simple vindication of their rights. Under the Disability Act, the HSE must begin an assessment of needs within three months of a request and must conclude that assessment within another three months. From speaking to countless parents around the country and in my constituency of Dublin Central, it seems this is very rarely the case. Assessments of need are essential in denoting what any given child will require to thrive in their education and in all aspects of their life. The gross disregard of those children and their needs as a priority for the State is an insult to their families, who work night and day to give their kids the best. It is an insult to the kids to be cast aside as an afterthought for months and often years on end. That is an absolute disgrace.

Forget the Apple money and the massive recurring budget surpluses we are told about. These children deserve to be prioritised, even if the Exchequer were half empty. It is not half empty, however. It is in many ways, we are told, full to the brim, and it adds insult to injury when a wealthy country shows it does not care for its most vulnerable. I will repeat the phrase, "Show me your budget and I will show you your care." Some 22% of last year’s assessment of needs appeals were from families in north Dublin, many of whom live in my constituency of Dublin Central. They have run through brick walls for their kids, but their treatment shows the State is failing to meet its legal obligations to support children with disabilities on an ongoing basis.

The HSE claims to be under-resourced because this Government and successive governments have ignored the cries of medical professionals and health-focused NGOs. They hear the informed opinion and choose to look away anyway. There are no excuses for the sad state of the HSE when we are sitting on surpluses that could give our most vulnerable a better life. We hear about rainy day funds. I hear about putting money away for the future. Is there ever a day when these families are not experiencing unbelievable difficulties? We need massive investment of money in people who can go into the caring professions. That needs to be reflected in the urgency the State demonstrates and in innovation to bring people into these professions. We need staff. Children with disabilities deserve equal opportunities for inclusion and participation in their communities and in all facets of their lives, as mandated by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This mandate is, quite simply, not being upheld.

The appeals office for assessment of needs only had one member of staff working part-time for the majority of last year and had no disability appeals officer for eight months. Imagine being one of the countless parents who make that phone call for the first time and are made aware of that reality. It is not only farcical, it is cruel. The budget for the entire disability appeals office last year was €120,000. We are all knocking on doors at the moment and hearing people talk about the cost of the bicycle shed and all of that. When we see €120,000 being invested by the State in a disability appeals office, it brings the reality into stark focus. It highlights a lack of compassion that is grossly offensive to those who have to put their lives on hold due to the lack of care they receive.

Just over 1,000 out of 3,300 primary schools have autism classes, and only 410 out of 710 secondary schools have autism classes. More than 120 children were left without a school place at the beginning of September. Parents fear these delays will lead to the regression of their child’s development, a fear nobody should have to shoulder because the State is not sufficiently providing for them. It is incredible. I am sure all of us are getting calls from parents in the same position. It is not just a fear, it is a reality. This break in education leaves families hamstrung, often unable to work, left to provide full-time care and teaching in lieu of the Department of Education’s misgivings. The experience of applying for school after school and facing rejection over and over again is exhausting. This reality is not sustainable for families. The applications for special classes and schools are not streamlined, often requiring hundreds of pages of submissions, taking countless hours, often with no end in sight, the equivalent of pushing a rock up a hill forever. That is what many families face every day. This sort of treatment is not emblematic of the Republic that anybody strove for. Education should not be too much to ask for any child in this State. No child or family should have to make the journey to the Dáil to have a child's right to be educated in an environment that is safe and that caters to his or her needs vindicated.

In regard to the special education teacher and special needs assistants allocation, the insufficient number of SETs and SNAs only exacerbates this problem. Earlier this year, charities such as AslAm, Down Syndrome Ireland and Inclusion Ireland wrote to the Department of Education asking for the revised SET allocation model to be paused until those most affected are meaningfully consulted.

Later this month we will celebrate for the first time SNA appreciation day. SNAs play a vital role in the class, often offsetting the failures of the State. It is high time that those people who do such undervalued work in the classrooms were valued, both in their compensation and terms. There are so many areas in which the State has failed. We absolutely need to do better, starting in two weeks' time with the budget, or maybe it is too late for that.

I welcome the motion by People Before Profit, and the opportunity to speak on it. I am a member of the disability matters committee. For nearly five years, we have been hearing from different parents and representative groups what is going on and the way they are experiencing life, living with a disability or with a family member who has a disability. We hear it in our constituency offices. I am sure every public representative has parents coming into their office. They are caught in limbo and cannot get some sort of guidance or steer on where they should go and how their child should be assessed. I saw this in Tuam in my constituency where a CDNT was opened to great fanfare this time last year.

It has not functioned properly since because we do not have the staff. Parents took to the streets before Christmas last December because they realised themselves, through a family forum, that it was not just one person but that every family was suffering. When a parent, who has just been referred by her GP to the mental hospital because her child cannot get the services and she cannot cope with the stress comes to me with her husband, something is wrong. The biggest problem people who come into my office have is that the assessments are not being done. What I would call a dressing up is what is being done. They are being registered and this, that and the other but the assessment and its results are not being delivered within six months as legally, we are supposed to do. I could stay here all day and tell the Minister of State what is wrong but I believe we have to have a fundamental change if we are to put things right. I thought this change would have come about when responsibility for disabilities was taken from the Department of Health and put in with the Department of children. Now, however, I find the HSE still has its claws in recruitment. The extraction of disabilities from the Department of Health has not happened at all; it has been a charade. I am sorry to say that but that is what it is because the Department of Health is still deciding about recruitment, which is of paramount importance. It is deciding about all those things in which I thought there was autonomy when talking about disabilities but we do not have that. The extraction of disabilities from the Department of Health has not happened. It has been another case of where we set up a new Department with a new letterhead and money spent on it. I am very disappointed in that.

I want to talk about education, schools and special needs schools. There is a fine new special needs school in Tuam, St. Oliver's. It has taken years to get the new school in place. It is now in place but is full to capacity and has a waiting list. In other schools in Galway, such as Lakeview, the building is physically not fit for purpose for its intended use. A new facility needs to be put in place there. Across my constituency, and I am sure every other constituency, certain schools have an ASD unit while other schools do not. A child can be separated from his or her siblings because they are going to the mainstream school and the child is going to another school where the facilities are in place. There is no joined-up thinking. It is harsh, like segregating people based on height whereby someone who is six inches taller goes there or whatever. You end up separating children. The best way of trying to give the best opportunity to young children who have a disability is to get them into assessments and get them into an education setting where they are comfortable and are with their family and friends. They are then seen to be part of normality. However, we try to separate them because we want to make them different.

The SET allocations have been a bit of a disaster. It is important to tackle that before operating school business next year. Moreover, this should not just be done with the snap of the fingers but with a proper consultation process in order that the special education teaching hours are working and are meaningful for anybody. In recent months and especially in recent weeks, I have come across people with special needs who got a place in a school but who do not have a bus to bring them there because they cannot get a bus that will take a wheelchair or an operator has stopped its service or some other reason or excuse. What really galls me about that is that when I make a representation, I am told it is the responsibility of Bus Éireann or something else. It is not; it is our responsibility to make sure that a full service is in place in order that children who have been allocated a place in a special school can get there. I know of one set of parents that is driving three to four hours a day to bring their child to school. They then drive home, drive back to school to collect the child and drive home again because there is no bus that can take a wheelchair. That is fixable. It is not money, it is really a case of somebody willing to drive this to make sure it is done right.

The Regional Group, of which I am a member, will bring forward a Private Members' motion next week on having a non-means-tested carer's allowance. The number of parents who have given up their work and their careers to mind their child and who are being denied carer's allowance because their spouses are working and earn more than a certain threshold is a shame on us, as politicians, in this House. Despite the service they provide and the commitments and sacrifices they make, we say they are not entitled to anything because the husband or the wife is earning money. If the parents do not do it and if the State is asked to do it, it will cost €20 million a year. It is not a cost; it is a real investment to make sure that our children with a disability are cared for in a loving way by their parents and that the parents are recognised for that.

I understand this motion will not be opposed today. I do not read anything into that because I take it as tokenism. What I would have liked to see is a structured response as to how to deal with the issues being raised in the Chamber today. I brought a Bill on autism before the House three years ago. At the Minister of State's request, I deferred it for a year. It has been buried in the Minister of State's Department on Committee Stage ever since. It has never seen the light of day. That is not the way we should be doing our business.

I fully support this motion regarding disability and special needs provision and thank People Before Profit for raising this very important issue.

First, I wish to highlight the urgency needed in the full ratification of the optional protocol of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The fact that the protocol and amendments to the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 have been left to languish on a desk for close to two decades is one of the clearest indicators of the lack of care and understanding this Government and previous Governments have for disabled people, the families of disabled children and carers.

Second, I emphasise the importance of acknowledging the real costs of disability via the abolition of the means test and I welcome the concept of a universal payment. The means test perpetuates poverty and verges on degradation. For example, if a disabled person gets married and his or her spouse earns more than a certain amount, the person loses the entitlement. This fully ignores the realities of disabled people and the cost of disability, as well as the barriers to employment. It creates an economic co-dependency that is detrimental to the disabled person and the person's family. This is just one example of the way this means test plays out. Needless to say, the means test indicates a lack of understanding of why there is a need for such a support and what the cost of disability truly is. The obstacles that disabled people face on a daily basis are immeasurable in respect of transport, shopping, accommodation, employment and education. I ask anyone who believes this means test is appropriate to spend one day overcoming these same horrible obstacles. I guarantee that not only would you agree that the means test ignores reality but you would find new respect and admiration for disabled lives.

Similarly, I welcome the proposal to introduce a guaranteed living wage for carers that is not means-tested and is constitutionally protected. As with its ignorance as to the cost of disability, the Government has shown continually that it has no clue as to what role carers actually provide. Means-testing carers merely serves to further trap families impacted by disability in poverty. It is a slap in the face to the countless family carers who often already have overcome much upheaval in their home and work lives. We should be showing carers gratitude and support for the millions of euro they save the State in providing State care. As the price is good, we should be thanking carers for caring for our fellow citizens. We should be treating them with grace and courtesy, not treating them with distrust and making them jump through hoops.

I fully support the other proposals contained within this motion. My time will not allow me to address them all individually. These proposals outline the facts and statistics of the issue, and rightly so. We need clear and quantifiable information in order to be able to address the issues.

The statistics, numbers, graphs and data must be used to propel us forward in making these vital changes. What must not happen is that we lose sight of the lived realities that have created these facts and figures. Every percentage listed can be distilled to children at home waiting for a place in our education system with their peers. Their parents are begging and battling a system that will not recognise a child's basic human rights. Our mainstream children miss more than 21 days in school and there is an obligation on the principal to contact Tusla. Meanwhile, disabled children are going years and entire childhoods excluded from education, friendships, community and life. We must meaningfully include disabled people in our society. This is as much for our own benefit as it is for theirs.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach. I welcome the motion put forward by People Before Profit-Solidarity on this very important issue. I have been raising the waiting lists, specifically in Clare, for the last number of months, and I have the numbers of the first contact and those waiting on the initial contact. There are still 36 children in care who are waiting for that initial contact. As we know, that is the very basics of support and services that can be put in place so it is very important that they continue to receive at least their initial contact.

I wish to mention that I was trying to find out how many SNAs are in schools, and from the response to the parliamentary question I received, it transpires that this number is not actually collected. It is available at a local level, for example, but they have indicated that there are 21,000 SNAs in schools. Anecdotally, I hear the likes of clinical psychologists and those who train SNAs also pointing to the fact that they are hearing that some schools are not actually hiring SNAs. There is still a gap there and possibly something that the Minister of State could look into.

In respect of CDNTs and the vacancies there, I know that at the Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters before the recess, it was raised with the Minister of State. I had also mentioned it to her in respect of Clare. At the time, there was a lot of focus on whether permanent contracts were being offered and that was something the Minister of State said had been brought to her attention by others and that she was going to look into it, but there is the fact that we are still here and we have still a lot of vacancies in all of the CDNTs. I know one in Tipperary, for example, where it is the occupational therapist. I have raised that with them locally. There are also a number of vacancies in Clare. I know the Minister of State has pointed to a new recruitment strategy but I think there is a need to ensure the permanent contracts and those being offered can avail of the home security, mortgages and all of that. It really needs to be considered.

I thank Deputies for bringing forward this motion and I welcome the opportunity to speak to the House to reassure Deputies that the Government is fully committed to people with disabilities and their families. I do, of course, acknowledge that there are important challenges that we must address, many of them raised by the Deputies in their contributions, if disability services are to fully meet the needs and expectations of those at the heart of the service. I would like to thank the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, for her important contributions regarding recent developments in the special education sector.

The programme for Government has seen, year on year, increased investment into disability services, with this year's budget seeing a record of approximately €2.8 billion funded for community-based disability services. This funding will help reinforce and support the sector and provide new and improved services, as an increase of €195 million on 2023. Sometimes we forget when we talk about respite. When I came into post, €55 million was ring-fenced for respite. It is now at €120 million. That is the investment and the weight that I have put on the value of respite.

It is also important to note that there has been substantial additional investment into children's disability services in recent years, with funding provided for over 600 whole-time equivalent posts. Notwithstanding that significant investment, I personally know of the frustrations that families experience in accessing the services they need. However, I want to tell Deputies that the Government has listened to the families and is pursuing significant investment and reform as part of the programme of radical transformation across disability services.

The HSE is taking a planned approach towards building capacity and addressing the service deficit, informed by the action plan on disability services that my Department published last year. The plan aims to build the capacity of disability support services to meet changing needs, improve timely access to services, and strengthen the focus on individual services and support. The action plan will be a key to enhancing services and ensuring that we have a human rights and person-centred approach to both policy and service delivery, requiring a concrete Government approach to disability.

With regard to the children's disability services, the PDS Roadmap for Service Improvement 2023-2026 provides a framework to improve services for children and their families, and clarifies the commitment of the HSE supported by Government by providing high-quality, responsive supports and services for children with disabilities. The roadmap includes a robust suite of 60 actions, with 45 either completed or in progress. As noted by Deputies, there are indeed many challenges facing children and young people with disabilities. We all recognise that working with children with complex needs is hugely rewarding but also very demanding, and I need to acknowledge that recruitment and retention of staff is presenting challenges to the HSE and the various lead agencies. These challenges are reflective of the issues affecting the wider health and social healthcare sector. This is borne out by the CDNT staff census, which notes an average vacancy rate of 36% across the CHOs - and I use the word "average".

The HSE continues to explore a range of options to enhance the recruitment and retention of staff to CDNTs, working collaboratively with the lead agencies to market the CDNT as an employer of choice in a competitive employment market. Some 21 of the actions contained in the PDS roadmap are focused on CDNT retention and recruitment targets, including national and international recruitment campaigns, along with the launch of the new therapy assistant grade.

While acknowledging the challenges that are faced by children's disability services across the country, and similar challenges faced in the special education sector, we must also acknowledge the developments and the investment that have taken place during this programme for Government. We can see the positive impact of these measures in various areas. Funding has been provided in recent years for specific measures to address the AON backlog - €11.5 million in budget 2023, and €5 million in budget 2024. In the first six months of 2024, completed assessments were up by 28%, aided by the recently introduced investment of €6.8 million for the waiting list initiatives.

Despite the recruitment and retention challenges across children's disability services, the number of whole-time equivalents working in our CDNTs is increasing year on year but I acknowledge we still have over 700 vacancies. In July, the Government approved the prioritisation of funding to support the expansion of training places in priority healthcare areas, including speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy. Working with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, we plan to increase our places in our OTs, physios and speech and language therapists over the two recruitment cycles by 33%.

There were 3,393 children on the CAMHS waiting list in July 2024. Nationally, this represents a decrease of 900 children waiting for the CAMHS community mental health services, down from 4,293 in December 2022. The data also show that at the end of July 2024, 94.2% of all urgent cases were responded to within 72 hours. The growth in care being delivered in primary care in the community is reflected in the 6% increase in therapy services delivered within communities in 2023, with primary care services delivering service to 1,397,679 therapy users in 2023.

In August, the Government agreed to support the special schools pilot for enhanced in-school therapy supports for 16 schools, developed by my Department and the Department of Education, supported by the HSE and NCSE. It is important to speak exactly to the point Deputy Tully raised. She asked why we were doing a pilot when therapists were already back in schools in 2019. It is important to say that in 2021, we secured funding to put back in 81 therapists. Unfortunately, the HSE applied the line of aligning to but not in. Aligning to was keeping them in the CDNTs but not putting them back into the special schools. In some schools, therapists were not removed, so there is an inequity in our education system at the moment.

To ensure there is good governance and the right supports, it is now a collaborative approach between the Department of Education and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the NCSE and the HSE so that we can assess the support that children are receiving. It is in therapies that are going into the pilot as opposed to aligning to them. That is a Government policy and direction that has been taken. An additional ten schools will come on board on a phased basis. The announcement of those ten additional schools will be in October this year. The significant benefit to this pilot is that therapists will be on-site during school hours. Home-based supports will be provided outside school hours in the usual way, delivered through the CDNTs. This will be recorded and tracked to demonstrate that children in special schools are being prioritised. We need to continue to invest in children's services and special education. The motion raises important points and while we have made significant progress over the last five years, I think we all acknowledge how important it is that we continue to develop services so that all children are provided with an appropriate level of services.

The scale of the challenges in this area is well understood by Government and the HSE. However, substantial and concrete efforts are being made to focus on finding workable solutions to address the issues and improve services and supports for children with disabilities and their families. Personally, during my time in office as Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities, I have been consistently proactive in my engagements on all these issues, to drive reform and improve services. I am acutely aware that, like me, no one wants to see a child having to wait one year, one month or one day more than necessary to receive the therapy supports that they need. I sincerely thank all the Deputies who have contributed to the debate this evening. I assure them that this Government will remain intensely focused on providing the best service we can for children and adults with disabilities.

I thank those in the Gallery who have come here today and who consistently campaign for their children, all our children and all of us with the work they do. I congratulate Greg from Ballymun and his missus, Celine, because they have fought like tigers in Finglas and got their son a place when, up to the last minute, he had not got one. Likewise, to Nicola O'Dea. I do not think she is here today. Nevertheless, we have other amazing people here today, including Hugo and his dad. Hugo has special needs. He asked me on the way in why the unions would not answer his letters. He has written to the trade unions and asked them to help mobilise demonstrations to force this Government to do something about special needs. Fair play to Hugo. Well done. I think he deserves an answer to the question. Why do the unions not answer your letter, indeed?

I want to approach this from a slightly different angle. Conor Reddy, the councillor who led an amazing campaign in Finglas, said to me, "Bríd, this is about planning and delivery". The more I look at it, the more I totally agree with him. I know that the Minister of State's speeches are sometimes written by civil servants. My speeches are written by parliamentary assistants. The speech of the Minister of State who left, Deputy Naughton, was written by a civil servant. I notice she said in her speech, "It makes me proud as an educator to see the progress we have made in schools in the area of special education ... I understand and regret that ... some families and students feel that our system is not working for them." She continued, "It is not fair that families are put in a position of feeling they have to fight for the right to an education for their children." It is not a feeling. It is an absolute reality for hundreds and thousands of parents and children. She says that we are all aware of the increased prevalence of disabilities like autism. It will increase and be more prevalent in the future, so we want to see a plan. Today's contribution from the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and the previous Minister of State, who has left, does not give us a plan. She said three things that jumped out. One is that there is a recent announcement relating to the provision of therapy services in special schools. The second is that there is a national strategy and action plan for lifelong guidance so that people can make better choices about their education. The third is that there is a comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities. She spoke about the Together Towards Inclusion programme. Great. She does not tell us how the Government is going to clear the waiting list of 10,000 who are waiting for assessments of special needs, how she is going to engage the-----

Let me come to that. She does not address how she is going to engage the 375 extra clinicians that the HSE says we need to clear that waiting list for assessment of need. There is not a word about that. Nor do we hear, as Deputy Boyd Barrett pointed out there, about the 110,000 children waiting for therapies. There is a 30% overall void in the number of therapists available. The Minister of State did not tell us about how she is going to do that, nor did she tell us about how she is going to increase the spaces in university to train new therapists for the future. That is in our motion. All of these things are about having an immediate plan to get the 375 extra clinicians in, an immediate plan to increase the therapy places in university and an immediate plan to employ therapists and retain them. Look at their work, pay and conditions. Can they access housing? Why are they leaving jobs? If we can recruit them, how can we hold onto them? That is the plan we need to see, otherwise it is lip service.

I know the Government is not going to oppose this. It has not tabled an amendment, so there will be no vote on this and no controversy. Who could vote against this? You would be out of your skull to vote against this, so the Government is not going to, but what is it going to do about it? What is it going to do about the chairperson's Bill that was passed and that is sitting waiting in some kind of laboratory for the committees to look at and will never be looked at? How is the Government going to deal with these things? We needed to hear about planning and delivery today, no more platitudes and stating how great it is that the Government has done this and this, or how it is going to announce 16 schools in October and is working with the Minister for Education. That is great and lovely but what we really need is a plan to deal with this as a matter of urgency. It is urgent because we come across people daily. I wrote to the Minister of State recently about one. She has had significant help since I wrote. She came to me when I was a young councillor looking for services for her child. He is now a big, strong man who beats her up. She needed respite and care for him. Now, she is getting it. Had she not been screaming and almost killed, with me screaming at the Minister of State, she would still be suffering. We need an urgent plan.

I thank everybody who has participated in the debate. I have sat through many debates like this in the Dáil and heard the Minister of State's responses in the past. I have heard about the pilot schemes, the task forces and the marginal improvements in a horrendous situation. It is still horrendous. If you go from waiting six years for an intervention that your child needs to waiting for five years and eight months, that is still a horrendous, unacceptable situation. I do not doubt the Minister of State's sincerity. I definitely believe that she cares. I do not believe what she said, that the Government is fully committed to families of children with disabilities. I do not believe that the Government wants to convert any of that care into action that will make a meaningful difference to these hundreds of thousands of families.

An illustration of that is the Government's approach to the motion tonight. This is its regular approach and what it does every time with motions on this issue. It is not opposing our motion. It will allow the Dáil to pass it, but like Deputy Smith said, the Government has no intention of implementing it. There are 17 clear asks here. How many does the Government intend to implement? I do not believe it intends to implement a single one of them.

That is the height of cynicism. It makes a joke of this democracy that one can table a motion stating that we need to do this, the Government can let it pass and the Dáil will officially say these things but the Government does not intend to do them. I will give an example, point No. 12 says: "Immediately ratify the Optional Protocol of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities;". The Government does not intend to immediately ratify it because if it does, then the likes of Greg Lewis or Charlotte and people whose children are denied the education to which they are entitled under Article 24 of the UNCRPD - "education on an equal basis with others in the communities in which they live" - could take action against the State. That is why the Government does not intend to do it.

It does not intend to scrap the means test for those on disability or carer's allowance or to make sure those payments cover the real costs of having a disability. The budget is a week and a half away. The Government does not intend, as point No. 17 calls for, to "invest an additional €2.5 billion and massively expand funding for disability payments ... in 2025 [as] the first year of a transformational multi-year programme to end exclusion and poverty for disabled people and ensure no one is left behind."

I do not believe that the Government intends to implement a comprehensive plan for staff retention across the relevant services, addressing in particular pay and conditions. We all hear awful stories of people who become therapists because they want to help children and are then trapped in an awful situation of managing massive waiting lists, not being able to do what they do, under massive pressure, unable to afford housing and then leaving and going into the private sector - a downward spiral. It relates to the point about pilot programmes in schools. It will be good if there are therapists in special schools; obviously, that makes sense. It would be good if there were therapists in every school but if one just moves therapists from CDNTs into schools, that will create an extra problem. The fundamental issue to address is staffing. That gets to the point around removing all barriers to further education for those in these professions. It is a question of fees and accommodation. These people could be on courses and relatively quickly be on the ground assisting while learning, etc. It requires doubling the number of places available in universities, ensuring assessments of need are carried out as well as recommended supports, ensuring delivery of adequate training and support for teachers, special education teachers and special needs assistants. We have a programme that would make a meaningful difference to all those people. This Dáil will adopt it, will say this is its position but it is the height of cynicism that the Government does not intend to do it.

The only way the Government will be forced to do any part of this is precisely by the campaigning pressure by the people in the Gallery today, those watching and those who will be outside the Dáil next Thursday. The Government has to be shamed, pressured and forced into it. It is not right. These parents should not have to fight. It is outrageous that they have to. They have enough on their plates already but that is what will ultimately make the difference.