(25 Jun 2009)
Deputy Jimmy Deenihan: Recently, I received a letter from the board of management, parents council, staff and principal of St. Ita’s and St. Joseph’s School, Balloonagh, Tralee, and I will read the contents of the letter into the record:
The Board of Management, Parents Council, staff and Principal of the above school are deeply concerned at the delay currently experienced by graduates from the school in being offered places for further education and training in the Kerry area. We regard this delay is as an unnecessary source of stress on the students and their parents; as this seems to be an annual problem we urge those involved to adequately fund the various service providers so that a seamless transition from school to further education and training can take place. As the number of students involved in the transition from school is generally low (10/12) we believe this issue should be addressed by the H.S.E. to avoid the stress, confusion and delay presently experienced by the students and their parents.
I also received an e-mail from concerned parents on behalf of their son which states: “Our son had been accepted for a place in Kerry Parents and Friends, Listowel. We went to the Kerry Parents and Friends AGM last week. The chief executive stated there was no funding for school leavers for 2009.” It was also pointed out there was a shortfall of 1.4 million for the Kerry Cork area. The parents were subsequently told by the manager with responsibility for intellectual disability in the HSE south region that there were approximately 96 people with no placement for September. This is certainly a disgrace. The e-mail continues:
At this moment we do not know where James will be in September. This is quite stressful for us going into the summer. James had 12 wonderful years in Nano Nagle school, Listowel which come to an end at the end of June.
There is a feeling of powerlessness at this stage because it is not known what will happen to James in September. The three schools most affected are Nano Nagle special school, Listowel, St. Ita’s and St. Joseph’s school, Tralee, and St. Francis school in Beaufort. The service-providers taking children from these schools are Kerry Parents and Friends centres in Listowel and Killarney, the National Learning Network in Tralee, which is funded by FÁS and has only four places available this year, and St. John of God. A total of 34 referrals have come from those three schools alone. The schools cannot keep them once they reach 18 years. This means that 34 young people who are now 18 years will have to leave education.
As a former Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin will know that the students will regress if not placed in a training or educational situation. It also places significant stress on their families. The parents may both be out working or the parent at home may have to provide continuous care. The centres have no capacity due to cutbacks. There is no flexibility nor additional capacity to facilitate these students.
I am aware that we are here at 8.15 p.m. in the evening and this Adjournment matter may not have much impact but if the service-providers are not given the adequate funding they require, I ask that an exception be made for the special schools to allow them keep pupils who are over 18 years for an additional year. It could be referred to as a transitional year in which the students could undertake work experience and other activities. This might be one way of helping them to overcome this problem.
The age of 18 is the cut-off point in special schools and this is wrong, especially if there is no other placement for the students. Children in mainstream education can stay on longer. If this situation was repeated for children in mainstream education there would be an outcry but nobody seems to be concerned about these children, who are special children. The parents do not know where their children will be going in September and nobody seems to care. This is a significant issue of blatant discrimination between parents of special children and parents of children in mainstream education. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Deputy Mary Hanafin: I thank Deputy Deenihan for raising this matter and apologise on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O’Keeffe, who could not be present. I am pleased to have been given the opportunity by the Deputy to clarify the position with regard to the matter raised by him.
The Department of Education and Science funds post-school provision for young adults, including those with a disability, generally through multiple providers, which include universities, post-leaving certificate courses, vocational training centres and national learning networks. In addition, vocational educational committees provide grant assistance to some service-providers within the health service towards an education component of its provision through the co-operation hours scheme.
There are currently 23 vocational training centres and approximately 34 national learning network centres throughout the country. They provide a service to approximately 1,300 young adults with a disability. Two of these facilities are located in County Kerry. Young adults attending the vocational training centres typically have a diagnosis of mild or moderate general learning disability and are unsuited to open training centres. Participants must be under 25 and they attend for a maximum three years’ duration. Department officials have contacted the Health Service Executive in the context of the Deputy’s inquiry with regard to its responsibility for young adults with special educational needs who are over 18 years. The HSE has advised that approximately 30 school leavers have been identified by the Kerry occupational guidance service of the HSE for training and day-care places. The HSE is currently working with service-providers to ensure that the individuals in question have access to services in September 2009 in the context of the available funding. The HSE intends communicating with the individuals or their parents or guardians, as appropriate, within the next ten to 14 days, to confirm the arrangements for each individual for September.
People with disabilities may also avail of adult literacy courses provided by the VECs around the country. The Deputy may also be familiar with the back to education initiative which provides part-time further education programmes for adults to give them an opportunity to combine a return to learning with family, work and other responsibilities. People with disabilities are one of the target groups of the programme. The BTEI programme is a part-time initiative for learners who wish to pursue part-time or modular programmes. Under the BTEI, a programme may be offered for as little as one hour per week or as much as 17 hours per week, depending on the needs and demands of the prospective learners. It is recommended that programme duration for individual learners, class contact hours, not exceed 400 hours per annum, over a twelve-month period.
I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to clarify the position with regard to the matter raised by him. I hope the issues are resolved shortly in the interests of those young people and their families.
Dail Debate - 23 June 2009
Deputy Olivia Mitchell: I stated previously in the House that I welcome the principle of introducing a preschool year for children. All the research indicates that children do better when they have had that opportunity. It is particularly valuable for disadvantaged children. Disadvantage comes in many forms. It may be financial or social disadvantage or due to poor quality parenting. All these children would benefit from such a scheme.
I want to speak tonight about a group of children who will not benefit and these are children with special needs. In some cases such children have significant obstacles to overcome if they are to benefit from later educational opportunities. The contribution a year in preschool can make for these children is of great value in helping them to cope with either mainstream school or a special needs school, if this is what is appropriate. Under the new scheme this is the one group which will not benefit. They will be excluded from the preschool year and may be excluded from playschool opportunities altogether for that particular year.
As the scheme is currently devised, from September 2010 it will only pay the preschool providers for a 15-hour week. For many special needs children, 15 hours is not a possibility as it is too long a time for them. Even if it is not too long, they will need a special needs assistant in order to attend playschool. The current practice is for them to attend for whatever period of time the special needs assistant is available to them. The special needs assistants’ hours are being reduced. I am not aware of any case where a child had an assistant for 15 hours. The reality is they have no opportunity to attend because the State will only pay for them if they attend for 15 hours.
They cannot attend without assistance so the most disadvantaged children will be the only children who will not be able to benefit from the scheme. The scheme is not just inequitable, but it is daft and very short-sighted in that it will only build up problems and more expense for the future and great frustration for both the children and their parents.
From the perspective of the playschool providers, it will not be possible for them to allocate their limited school places to children who will only turn up for three or four hours a week and where the State will only pay for those who attend for 15 hours a week. The private playschool sector is facing significant upheavals in its business, moving virtually overnight from a situation where they were independent businesses tailoring their hours and times to the needs of their customers to becoming customers themselves of a one-size-fits-all State monopoly.
I do not know what forethought went into devising this scheme because it is fraught with issues which have been raised before. If all the children who are eligible for this scheme - numbering between 70,000 and 80,000 - turned up looking for a place in January, only a fraction of places will be available. I do not know how Dublin playschools will survive because the fee being offered is way below anything being charged in the Dublin area.
A scheme that effectively excludes children with special needs cannot be introduced. The irony is that the very Department which recognises the need for special needs assistants for disabled children attending school is the very Department which recognises the need for a preschool facility, yet this Department has devised a scheme which excludes the group that need it most and who would benefit most.
The Minister of State knows the additional burden and stress and worry that a special needs child places on a young, struggling family. Many families are discovering now that their child will not benefit from this scheme. In the coming months more families will discover that the scheme does not seem to accommodate their children.
I have to believe that this anomaly was not intentional and that the Minister will amend the scheme to ensure that disabled children can avail of it. I have to believe the Minister will amend it in a way that does not require either the preschool providers or the children’s families to take the hit because many families are wondering whether they will have to pay. They wonder if their children will be allowed into the playschools because the limited number of places will inevitably be given to those who will attend for 15 hours a week.
There is still time to retrieve this situation and I ask the Minister of State to do so as quickly as possible and cause the least amount of anxiety and stress to the families and parents of these disabled children.
Deputy John Curran: I will reply on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney.
I wish to reaffirm the Government’s commitment to people with disabilities and to the national disability strategy and its long-term goals and objectives which we will continue to pursue in the coming years in partnership with all the key stakeholders.
The early childhood care and education scheme is being introduced from January 2010 as a free scheme to benefit children in the key developmental period prior to commencing school. The scheme will allow eligible children to avail of a free preschool place in the year before they commence school. The scheme is open to all private and voluntary preschool services which are notified to the Health Service Executive or registered with the Irish Montessori Educational Board. Participating services will be required to provide an educational programme consistent with the principles of Siolta and appropriate to the age of participating children. As a free preschool year, participating services must agree to provide the service in return for a capitation fee of some €2,450 per annum.
The scheme is a general one and participating services will be required to make reasonable accommodation for children with special needs in accordance with the Equal Status Acts 2000 to 2004. However, the scheme takes account of a number of issues to accommodate children with special needs. While the age range in which children will qualify for the scheme is, generally, between three years three months and four years six months on 1 September each year, exceptions are allowed where a child has been assessed by the HSE as having a special need which will delay his or her entry to primary school. In such cases, the preschool year relevant to such children will be taken as their qualifying year. Additionally, the general requirement that a child would be expected to attend four or five days each week will not apply to children with special needs where a shorter week would be more appropriate to their needs. Where a preschool service is a specialist one providing a service to children with special needs and additional flexibility in the arrangements for the scheme is required, this will also be considered.
Since 2005, the Government has provided significant additional resources for services and supports for effecting real change in the development of services for people with disabilities and as a demonstration of the ongoing commitments to people with disabilities, an additional €10 million was provided in the 2009 budget to continue the development of services for children with disabilities. A critical element of the ongoing development of disability services is the requirement to provide financial support for the development and implementation of a wide range of services provided to children with disabilities.
In the current challenging economic environment, there is a responsibility on all publicly funded services to review the way in which services are delivered and ensure resources are used to maximum effect. The HSE and voluntary disability service providers are working together to ensure that all of the existing resources available for specialist disability services are used in the most effective manner possible. This involves a collaborative approach at local health office level in dealing with arising situations, development of criteria for identifying needs in a consistent manner nationally, identification of capacity to increase provision within existing resources, reviewing existing service arrangements in the context of appropriate response and service efficiency and developing innovative responses to meet requirements.
There is no additional capitation available under the ECCE scheme to preschools on foot of having children with special needs. However, ad hoc arrangements have been made in some local health offices utilising home support-personal assistant resources to support children with specific difficulties accessing mainstream preschool services. The provision of such supports is dependent upon the assessed needs of the child and the resources available. In the current challenging financial environment, there are many competing priorities and the HSE is obliged to use the resources available to it in the most efficient and effective manner possible. The Department of Health and Children and the HSE are working closely to manage the considerable budgetary challenges in this regard. The cross-sectoral team on disability comprising representatives from the Department of Health and Children, the Department of Education and Science, the HSE and the National Council for Special Education will be considering the provision of educational supports to children with disabilities in the coming months. Additionally, the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs will continue to fund training in the child care sector, including training courses which equip child care workers with the skills to support the integration of children with special needs into mainstream services.
Special Educational Needs
Deputy Tom Sheahan: “Let no man write my epitaph; ... no man ... knows my motives ...”. This is very pertinent to the current Minister for Education and Science. The parents of special needs children cannot understand his motives for removing special needs classes. My colleague, Deputy Michael Ring, spoke about rural transport and removing necessary services from the elderly. This appears to be the route the Government has taken - it is hitting the most vulnerable in society. It tried to take the medical cards from people over 70 years of age and now it is removing rural transport.
A society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. Special needs children are undoubtedly the most vulnerable members of our society. The removal of classes is a budgetary measure. I am disappointed the Minister is not present tonight. What will be saved by removing classes from special needs children? We take great pride in the aid we give to foreign countries, yet our own people are suffering. Not very long ago these children would have been locked away in attics and the back rooms of houses or put into mental institutions.
A special needs class is being removed from St. Oliver’s national school in Killarney. I can stake all my input into political life that the school is a centre of excellence. Children travel from every corner of County Kerry and even from beyond the county boundaries to the school because it is a centre of excellence. Does the Minister realise the consequences of his action and the consequences for the children concerned? Many parents have approached me to ask that this action be stopped. Some of them are parents of children who have left St. Oliver’s, gone on to mainstream secondary schools, have done well and now have jobs. Some are parents of children who are currently in St. Oliver’s. I have also met parents who are seeking a place in St. Oliver’s for their child, which will not be available with the removal of this class.
The principal is put in the position of having to decide who is and is not entitled to a place in this centre of excellence. That is an awful predicament. Will we have to appoint a Minister for Education and Science who has a special needs child to deal with this and to realise what is involved? Another parent called to my clinic recently. I am as tough as any man in this House but this woman brought me down to size. She told me her son is paralysed, has minor learning difficulties and is fitted with a feeding tube. She asked where her child could go when he does not get a place in St. Oliver’s. I could not answer. I would hate to be in that position or for any of my constituents to be in that position.
This is due to a budgetary measure by the Minister. Where will the money be saved? The child I mentioned is entitled to one hour of special needs education per day in his national school. The centre of excellence in St. Oliver’s must be retained for the people in my constituency. I am sure this is an issue in every other constituency. The savings are minimal. A child with only mild learning difficulties would be able for mainstream education if they had an I.Q. of between 50 and 70. However, this is not the case and it is up to the principal to decide who gets the places and who does not. The only savings will be in school transport. The parents of the children I am representing would be more than willing to bring their children to this centre of excellence if the class is retained.
Deputy John Curran: I thank Deputy Tom Sheahan for raising this matter and apologise on behalf of the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O’Keeffe, who could not be present. I am pleased to have the opportunity to clarify the position on the matter raised by the Deputy.
The Deputy will be aware that allocations to schools typically increase or decrease depending on pupil enrolment. In the case of special classes for pupils with a mild general learning disability, MGLD, the normal pupil teacher ratio that applies is 11:1. The Department of Education and Science, however, allows for a small reduction in this number and permits schools to retain a teaching post where it has a minimum of nine pupils in the class. The school in question has three special classes for MGLD. A total enrolment of 31 is required to retain the three classes. The enrolment in the three classes as returned by the school in September 2008 was 21 pupils. The minimum enrolment required to retain the third class has therefore not been fulfilled and the school no longer qualifies to retain the third special class.
The school in question appealed the Department’s decision to suppress the class. The Department has considered the appeal and has advised the school that the decision to suppress the third class remains.
Deputy Tom Sheahan: Shame.
Deputy John Curran: However, it would appear that some of the children who are enrolled in the MGLD classes in the school in question may fall within the low incidence disability category and may qualify for resource teaching support through the National Council for Special Education, NCSE. Officials in the Department have been in contact with the NCSE and I understand that the school has initiated contact with the special educational needs organiser, SENO, in this regard. I understand also that the SENO will convey a decision to the school as soon as this process has been completed.
The pupils in the class being suppressed will continue to receive additional teaching support through the teaching resources allocated to primary schools under the general allocation model. Schools decide how best to use this allocation based on the needs of the pupils and how to adjust their support in line with the changing needs of pupils as they mature. The Department issued a circular SP ED 02/05 to all schools to assist them in deploying the general allocation model resources.
The Department of Education and Science promotes a continuum of assessment and intervention. These interventions range from support from the classroom teacher to support from the resource/learning support teacher. Where a school considers that these interventions are not meeting the child’s needs, it should seek the advice of its National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, psychologist. Schools without an assigned NEPS psychologist can avail of the scheme for commissioning psychological assessments. Advice may be also sought from the local special educational needs organiser. The Deputy will be aware of the unprecedented investment in providing supports for children with special needs in recent years. There are now about 19,000 adults in our schools working solely with children with special needs. There are more than 8,000 resource and learning support teachers in our schools, compared with just 2,000 in 1998. More than 1,000 other teachers support children in our special schools. Some 86 classes for children with mild general learning disability are being retained where there are nine children or more in these classes.
The Minister for Education and Science wishes to emphasise that priority will continue to be given to provision for children with special educational needs. The establishment of these classes for mild general learning disability pre-date many of the developments in special education policy in recent years and we now have a system for providing schools with supports for children with high incidence special needs through the general allocation model.
In raising the matter, the Deputy specifically asked whether there was a need to appoint a Minister who has a special needs child. The Minister of State responding to him tonight has been in that position and had a child in that situation who availed of mainstream education. As a conscientious parent, I did not have an opportunity to avail of this class. However, I can say that the services provided through the other supports provided me, my family and our daughter with a very positive educational experience.
I thank the Deputy again for giving me the opportunity to clarify the position with regard to this matter.