25 November 2010

Dáil Debates

• Adjournment Debate: Education Resources for Children with Autism

Parliamentary Questions

• Proportion of extra €100 million allocated to improve or extend the private homes of older persons and persons with a disability that has been drawn down
• If specific conditions are disregarded for domiciliary care allowance applications
• Scheme for students to transfer resource hour entitlement when moving schools
• Allocation to a school in Wexford

DÁIL DEBATES

• Adjournment Debate: Education Resources for Children with Autism

Deputy Terence Flanagan: I thank the Ceann Comhairle for affording me an opportunity to raise this important issue. The Government has a poor record in assisting children with special needs. In the most recent budget many special needs assistants lost their jobs and the forthcoming budget and four year plan include plans to axe further special needs assistants. This is a disgrace. The Government has turned its back on sufferers of dyslexia. When the country was wealthy it did not carry out a study to discover how many children suffer from the condition. For the past ten years, the Department of Education and Skills has not once increased the small annual grant of €63,500 it provides to the Dyslexia Association of Ireland. The Government clearly has the wrong priorities when it fails to adequately fund associations such as the DAI and chooses instead to pay lip service to their work. It has squandered billions of euro in the past ten years and it is the most vulnerable who are paying the price. I propose to raise some questions on Government policy on educational provision for children with autism spectrum disorder. It is estimated that the Department of Education and Skills has spent in excess of €80 million on a pilot project for ABA schools in the past ten years. The project was terminated without undertaking a proper evaluation of the effectiveness of the ABA pilot schools. During a recent meeting with parents of children in one of the pilot schools a departmental official referred to a 2006 report entitled, An Evaluation of Educational Provision for Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders, which features details of visits to some of the ABA pilot schools carried out in 2001-02. The decision to close the ABA schools was based on reviews which had taken place eight years previously in a sample of the pilot schools. This is an example of highly flawed decision making. Having spent almost €80 million on a pilot project, the Government has failed to evaluate the project adequately. This failure and the absence of a proper cost benefit analysis of ABA schools is a wanton waste of taxpayers’ money and a dereliction of duty on the part of the Government. The Department decided to replace ABA schools with special schools and ASD units which employ what is described as an eclectic approach to educating children with autism. However, no research has been produced to support the use of the Department’s preferred approach. Departmental officials admitted recently that this was the case and the Department does not have any plans to evaluate ASD units. The Minister for Education and Skills is pumping millions of euro into a teaching model whose effectiveness has not been evaluated. She clearly does not have an interest in the children who are affected by this decision. ABA schools have produced terrific results for children with autism. The Government should listen to the views expressed by parents on the teaching methods they want to have provided for their children. The young children in question deserve better from the State. They are being let down by the decisions that have been taken on this matter. Consequently, I appeal to the Minister of State, Deputy Moloney, to ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills to re-examine this issue.

Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills (Deputy John Moloney): I apologise that the Tánaiste cannot be present this evening. I am replying to this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Coughlan. I thank Deputy Terence Flanagan for raising this matter as it provides me with the opportunity to outline to the House the position regarding provision for children with special educational needs and to outline the enormous progress made in recent years on supports for these children. I wish to make clear that the education of children with special educational needs has, and remains, a key priority for the Government. The Government has put huge resources into schools to enable them to meet the demands of children with special educational needs. To this end, more than €1 billion has been allocated in the 2010 Department budget to support special education in schools. Deputy Flanagan will be aware that the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 requires that all children with special educational needs shall be educated in an inclusive environment with children who do not have such needs unless the nature or degree of the need is such that to do so would be inconsistent with the best interests of the child or the effective provision of education for children with whom the child is to be educated. The Department of Education and Skills provides for a range of placement options and supports for schools that enrol pupils with special educational needs to ensure that, wherever a child is enrolled, he or she will have access to an appropriate education. Children with special educational needs may be enrolled in a mainstream school and attend all mainstream classes.

Children who are fully integrated may receive additional teaching support through the learning support teacher or the resource teacher or both. If the child has care needs, he or she may receive support from a special needs assistant, SNA. In other cases, a child with special needs may enrol in a mainstream school and attend a special class. This provides an option of partial inclusion in mainstream classes in line with the child’s abilities. Alternatively, if appropriate, the child may enrol in a special school. The Department supports special classes and special schools through the provision of lower pupil teacher ratios for such classes, ranging from 6:1 to 11:1, the provision of SNAs and enhanced levels of capitation funding. At present, the Department funds more than 9,000 whole-time equivalent learning support resource teacher posts, more than 10,000 whole-time equivalent SNA posts and more than 1,000 teachers in special schools. In addition, enhanced capitation funding is paid to special schools and in respect of special classes in mainstream schools. The Department also provides more than €50 million annually for special school transport arrangements and €1.3 million on assistive technology. Extensive teacher training and continuing professional development in the area of special educational needs is provided through the special education support service, SESS. In 2009, the SESS funded more than 23,000 teacher places in courses on special education. A visiting teacher service also is in place for children who are blind, visually impaired, deaf or hard of hearing. To further support the inclusion of children with special needs, all new school buildings and extensions are designed to enable access for all and the Department provides funding to adapt existing school buildings where required. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, through its network of more than 80 local special educational needs organisers, SENOs, supports schools, parents, children and teachers and will continue to do so in line with the Department’s policy. I again assure Deputy Flanagan that even in the current economic climate, the provision of appropriate educational intervention and supports for children with special educational needs will continue to be a key Government priority.

Deputy Terence Flanagan: What about autistic children?

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS

• Proportion of extra €100 million allocated to improve or extend the private homes of older persons and persons with a disability that has been drawn down

Deputy Lucinda Creighton (FG): asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the amount of the extra €100 million allocated to improve or extend the private homes of older persons and persons with a disability that has been drawn down to date; Minister of State at the Department of the Environment; Heritage and Local Government (Deputy Michael Finneran): The Housing Adaptation Grant Schemes for Older People andPeople with a Disability are funded by 80% recoupment available from my Departmenttogether with a 20% contribution from the resources of the local authority. Record exchequerallocations totalling almost €80m were notified to local authorities under the schemes on 5March 2010, giving a combined allocation of almost €100m. It is a matter for each local authority to decide on the specific level of funding to be directed to each of the various grantmeasures from within the allocations notified to them by my Department and to manage theoperation of the schemes in their areas from within their allocation.Over the period 1 January 2010 to 19 November 2010, a total of €47.6m has been recoupedby my Department to local authorities in respect of the exchequer contribution under thevarious grant measures.

• If specific conditions are disregarded for domiciliary care allowance applications

Deputy Seán Sherlock (L): asked the Minister for Social Protection if there are specific conditions that are being deliberately disregarded for the purposes of deliberating on domiciliary care allowance applications;

Minister for Social Protection (Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív): In order to qualify for domiciliary care allowance a child must have a disability so severe that it requires the child needing care and attention and/or supervision substantially in excess of another child of the same age. This care and attention must be given by another person, effectively full-time so that the child can deal with the activities of daily living. The child must be likely to require this level of care and attention for at least 12 months. Eligibility for domiciliary care allowance is not based primarily on the impairment or disease, but on the resulting lack of function of body or mind necessitating a degree of extra care and attention required; as such it is not possible to say in advance if a child diagnosed with any specific condition will qualify for a payment under the scheme. Every application is assessed on its individual merits by one of the Department’s Medical Assessors and a medical opinion, based on the information submitted by the applicant in support of their claim, is offered in each case. The deciding officer then makes a decision having considered the medical opinion provided and all the other information available.

• Scheme for students to transfer resource hour entitlement when moving schools

Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills her plans to introduce a scheme for students to transfer resource hour entitlement when moving schools;

Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills (Deputy Mary Coughlan): The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs), for allocating resources to schools to support children with special needs. The NCSE operates within my Department’s criteria in allocating such support. The Deputy will be aware that there is no automatic system of transfer of resources from one school to another. Where a child with special educational needs is in receipt of additional supports in a school and moves school, and no other child with special needs enrols in the school, then the resource — resource teaching hours and/or SNA support — is withdrawn from the first school and, if still warranted by the child’s needs, will be sanctioned for the new school. In considering applications for teaching and SNA supports for individual pupils, the SENOs take account of the needs identified in the professional report and decide whether the circumstances come within the Department’s criteria. They then consider the resources available to the school to identify whether additionality is needed or whether the school might reasonably be expected to meet the needs of the pupil from its current level of resources. All schools have the names and contact details of their local SENO. Parents may also contact their local SENO directly to discuss their child’s special educational needs, using the contact details available on www.ncse.ie. I have arranged for the details supplied to be forwarded to the NCSE for their attention and direct reply.

• Allocation to a school in Wexford

Deputy Paul Kehoe (FG): asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills the reason a primary school (details supplied) in County Wexford is still obliged to work within the confines of learning support hours granted to them in 2005, based on their 2004 enrolment numbers; three yearly reviews which were due in 2007 and 2010 have still not taken place, yet in the intervening period the school has had a 46% increase in enrolment; the steps she will take to review and rectify this situation and if there are other schools that have not had their learning support hours increased in line with pupil numbers;

Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills (Deputy Mary Coughlan): As the Deputy will be aware, the General Allocation Model (GAM) was introduced in primary schools in September 2005 to ensure that each school has learning support/resource teaching support available to meet the needs of children with high incidence special educational needs. In general, where a school meets the criteria for developing school status as outlined in the staffing schedule for the appointment of teachers for the current school year (Department Circular 0021/2010), an appropriate adjustment will automatically be made to the school’s allocation under the GAM. When the GAM commenced, a commitment was given to carry out a review after three years of operation. This review commenced in 2008. The process involved engaging with the Education Partners which includes parent, management and union interests in the context of securing their views on the model’s operation. The review is at an advanced stage and is currently being considered within my Department. Any decision in relation to the operation of the model will be taken in the context of the outcome of the review, the resources available and the competing demands for resources generally in the education system.

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