I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." Where do I start?

Sentiment score: 0.00

I could not say I was shocked but I was not particularly happy, obviously, when I saw the Government's response to this. This is not the first time the Minister of State and I have had a conversation, never mind the legislation, on the issues regarding those seeking places for their children, and the rights of those children, whether in primary or secondary school. I would state quite explicitly that we are very far from a solution. In fairness to me and to the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, which I would pay great tribute to and which brought all its wherewithal to bear, some of the questions that have been presented by the Government as an answer to this would have already been considered by us beforehand. Where the idea for this particular Bill came from was, I think, the education committee. I was dealing with a number of stakeholders, including the IPPN. In fairness, the IPPN - I think it was Mr. Páiric Clerkin - was back in front of the Oireachtas committee on education in July of this year. I will read a bit of the IPPN's opening statement. The current limitation whereby schools only have one year lead-in time to manage admissions is very problematic in terms of forward planning. Call to action: IPPN has called for a two-year lead-in, which would give NCSE, school boards, parents and staff sufficient time to make provision for children with SEN. The Admissions Act needs to be amended to facilitate this. The new approach to approval by NCSE of entitlement to a place in a special class streamlines the process considerably. Once capacity is fully in place, this will be welcomed by schools and parents alike. That is it in a very straightforward sense. When I first heard this idea, it made absolute sense. The parents of sixth class students with special educational needs will generally apply to secondary schools. They do that around October or November of the year before their child is due to start secondary school. A number of Deputies have had phone calls around these sorts of issues again this year, like every other year. In addition, children who have special educational needs heading into primary schools from créche or home face the same need to apply in the October or November of the year before they start school. The way the system is set up, schools never know how many children with special educational needs are going to apply and they regularly struggle to meet the demand for places because they have less than one year to prepare for those coming in. We know the issues that exist around the interaction with the NCSE. Some work has been done in relation to SENOs. However, we also know that where children do not have an assessment of need, the school cannot necessarily determine whether the child is to go into a special class or into mainstream education or what the circumstances and situations are for special schools. The idea of this, no more than what the Minister of State is doing having families contact the NCSE directly, is to just have a longer run-in. That is all we are looking for. Anything regarding issues that there may have been with the Act could have very easily been dealt with on Committee and Report Stages. I am disappointed this is the case. I thank the Minister of State for being here so we can at least debate this set of circumstances. This has come from educators. This is not a notion I thought up on my own. It makes complete sense. I asked a number of educationalists and stakeholders who were before the committee what the one thing is that would make a difference. They said a two-year lead-in. That is what we are talking about. I get the Minister of State is in a roundabout way trying to deal with that. I said to him previously that the NCSE needed to look at the cases it can look at earlier than a year beforehand. I am really disappointed where this is going. We get it. In a new departure for the 2026-27 academic year, parents must first complete the online form before the 1 October deadline to receive an eligibility letter to apply for NCSE school admissions for special classes or special school. The letter is then used to apply for a place in a specific school. If the child already has an eligibility letter not dated, one can be obtained from a local SENO. Schools have specific admission policies with eligibility and selection criteria based on NCSE guidance. All this would need to happen beforehand. I do not see any difficulty for parents being able to make this application process, particularly with the school, at an earlier stage. That allows for an awful lot of the preparatory work to be done, including even some of this . It makes complete sense. I will be very interested in the Minister of State's reason for the Government being utterly opposed to this. We will then be able to have an interaction afterwards on it. The Government's amendment states: "a child's right to education is enshrined in the Constitution and, under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, must be accessible on an equal basis with others in the community in which they live" so that education "must be accessible on an equal basis with others in the community in which they live". However, the exact wording from the convention is: "on an equal basis with others in the communities in which they live". The objective of this Bill is to promote equal inclusive education in accordance with the State's Constitution and the UNCRPD. The Minister of State and others have to accept that I did not set out to undermine anybody's rights. We also have to accept the reality that it is about facilitating the families of those with disabilities and facilitating those children with disabilities who are being impacted at this point in time. The fact is we need to level the playing field. I do not see anything wrong in this. I initiated this because I believe it helps create a society based on tolerance, inclusion and social justice. It prevents children with disabilities from being isolated and excluded and enables them to participate in community life alongside everyone else. Through learning and playing together, children with and without disabilities and their teachers and parents can more easily understand and accept each other. Furthermore, we are now talking about in-school therapies and ensuring we have those supports where the need is, which is where the children are. We heard at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters recently where, in fairness, there was a lot of discussion on best practice in the likes of Portugal and Finland and the idea of facilitating the children who can be in mainstream education with all those supports. As much as I support the idea of in-school therapies in the 45 special schools as a starting point, which needs to be ramped up, there will be a short-term issue. That will be on the basis that parents who cannot get therapies and who live in the vicinity of these special schools are under severe pressure will all apply for that. We will need a ramping-up job done. As much as I am disappointed and annoyed by this legislation, I am not wedded to this it or any other Bill. If I see a layout and that we are moving in the correct direction and trajectory, I will be only too delighted to support that. Even as a constituency TD and as a father of a child with needs, I want people to be facilitated. I do not want people coming into me on the basis they cannot get the rights for their children. That is not anything I want. The Bill increases the application timeframe for admission to special school places to two years, with the objective that this will provide parents with sufficient time to collate any documentation that a school may request as part of its application process, in particular any assessments in relation to the applicant student with special educational needs. I could go on. I assume the Minister of State is going to speak about how he is going to attempt to facilitate the NCSE process or any other processes. We may be talking about transition from early learning centres into primary school, where we have children who have been assessed and require access to the access and inclusion model, AIM. They then have to start a rigamarole again. We need to have a better system. As opposed to parents needing to make applications to the NCSE, if the system worked correctly, we would already have all that information. It is not like the children are arriving from Mars, particularly with regard to secondary school. They are in the system, yet the system has to be told about them again. We really need to get our act together on that. It does not make any sense whatsoever. The amendment notes the Government will improve communication and outreach to parents, streamline the process by which parents apply for specialist school places, reducing the burden on them and improving the timelines and ensure that available capacity across schools is maximised. That is exactly what I am attempting to do. The parents of students with disabilities should be seen as partners in inclusive education provision that accords with the UN recommendations in respect of Article 24 of the UNCRPD and families should be consulted with and involved at every stage. Parents are going to give out about the lack of communication and about how, at times, they do not have a point person to talk to. We could all improve the circumstances by allowing a longer lead-in. The amendment further states "that this proposed legislation dates from 2024 and does not have regard to the progress being made by the Department of Education and Youth and the NCSE in introducing new measures to support forward planning for the 2026/27 school year". We have already discussed what that entails. The Bill was initiated on 10 July 2024. I have engaged with the Minister of State on the Department's plans and have no issue with them. I want further forward planning. I want a longer running time. We have to streamline the system. This allows for parents to be in place, for schools to be partners and for the NCSE and SENOs to have a greater level of time to collate the necessary documentation. I would like to think we can get to a place where all this would happen in a far more seamless way, but we are far from there at the minute. The amendment further notes that the legislation could have significant and negative impacts on a number of groups that have not been properly considered. It goes on to state that the proposed legislation may have an impact on the families of children and young people with special educational needs moving into an area within two years of seeking a school place, in particular families that are renting. It also refers to impact the proposed legislation may have on families, children and young people with special educational needs who receive a diagnosis and professional recommendation within two years of seeking a school place, in particular young children entering primary school. As I said, I did not do this on my own. It was not my idea. The IPPN saw the absolute necessity for the Bill. Beyond that, I went to the OPLA. We are always told to go to it and not draft legislation on our own. As I said, on that basis I am doubly surprised that we are having this type of interaction. It is an example of inequality to guarantee in equal measure all things to all people. Legislation may treat groups of people differently if the Oireachtas believes that the group justifiably and rationally needs to be treated differently. I accept there will always be people who move into an area at the last minute and we will have to have a facility to deal with that. I do not see the Bill as disrespecting that. Those circumstances arise and we have always needed to address that. I, more than anyone, have spoken about the need for flexibility in all systems, but the majority of parents and children know the schools they are going to apply to so it makes absolute sense that the school would know that they are looking to go there. We are talking about kids with special educational needs. We know there is a hell of a lot of work to do from an administrative point of view and beyond that to make sure that the supports are in place and all the ducks are in a row. I am very interested in what the Minister of State has to say. The amendment states that the lack of a definition of "special educational needs" in the proposed legislation and the uncertainty of the legislation applies to all estimated 25% of students with special educational needs who may seek a mainstream special class or special school. The proposed legislation lacks a definition of special educational needs as it followed the drafting style adopted in the regulations, which were drafted by the Office of the Attorney General of neglecting to define terms already defined in the parent Act, namely, the Education Act 1998. Other terms such as "admissions policy" and "patron" are also not defined in the regulations but are defined in section 2 of the Education Act 1998. There is more, but I await the Minister of State's answer.

Sentiment score: 0.13

I do not doubt the Minister of State's sincerity. We have dealt with many issues many times and, in fairness, he has always made his best attempt to deal with those issues. On some level, we are dealing with a system that is far from perfect at this point. I will make a defence of this legislation. I thank Deputy Cummins for speaking on it and I reiterate what she said. A two-year run-in is just a sensible idea, which is why the Irish Primary Principals' Network proposed it. As I said before, I am not utterly wedded to this legislation. I would be only delighted to have a conversation afterwards and to hear then or in the near future that the Minister of State is moving in the direction of increasing the run-in time. I do not think anyone is going to complain once we see a common application system and once it is simple for parents to use. I think we welcome, while accepting all the issues that we will all have relating to communication, the 1 October deadline for parents notifying the NCSE. Again, we need to make our information systems a hell of a lot better because most of this information should already be known without any parent having to make contact, particularly when we are talking about children who are in the system. More work needs to be done for those who are in the early learning system to ensure that every part of the system communicates, particularly to ensure transitions. The fact is that there are still children who do not have appropriate places. Buildings have not been delivered. Issues exist with school transport. We need to make sure that sufficient time is provided to schools and the NCSE, but also that we take away some of the hassle and heartache from parents and children. We all know we could talk about the other issues that exist with assessments and that is long before we talk about the necessary supports and therapies. That is another thing that I have supported, in the sense of moving in the direction of having therapies in school. I think I have said it many times before. The logic is that you put the therapies and supports where the need is, which is in the school, which is in some cases the easiest place to deliver. It has also been said that this should probably happen at an earlier stage, in early learning centres. Not only should we provide those sorts of supports and ensure that we are involving not only SNAs, teachers and principals, but we should also be engaging with the family. The Minister of State and I have spoken many times before about making sure that we have the technological back-up, through assistive technology, that can facilitate everyone from the child to the parent, the teachers and the SNAs. That is absolutely vital. The problem is that we are starting on the journey far too late and probably in the wrong place. I welcome in-school therapies and the common application system but I need to see them in operation fully and properly. I foresee an issue with the 45 special schools. I imagine they will be absolutely inundated wih applications. It needs to be spread out and ramped up, and much needs to happen. That could take pressure off the whole children's disability network team, CDNT, system. We could eventually get to a situation where they could concentrate more on those bespoke requirements for those with more challenging needs. That is for a different day. I will not repeat what I have said before. This is usually the point at which I repeat everything that I have said before, but I will not. One of the issues the Minister of State brought up is that the proposed legislation allows for children and young people with special educational needs to apply for admission up to two years in advance. It is silent on the timelines for schools making decisions on admissions. It is not clear, therefore, that the legislation will achieve its aim of providing clarity for parents earlier. My proposed legislation is silent on the timeline for schools making a decision on admission because the policy objective is to provide, in legislation, for an appreciation that it can take time to facilitate special school places and to provide a longer timeframe within which schools can make this decision. When the information is available, it will result in additional questions that will need to be answered regarding what facilities and supports will be required. The Minister of State and I will not be in agreement on what is happening here. To use a term that is overused in this House, this is a missed opportunity. We could have refined the Bill on Committee and Report Stages. I would have had no issue with doing that. I hope, as I said, that the Minister of State will show movement, not only on school therapies and the common application system but also on delivering a system in which every child is provided with an appropriate place and some of the nightmares parents have to deal with are removed, and which ensures that everything is resourced. Communication is vital but it does not always happen. On a somewhat related issue, Bernard Gloster said the parents with the best view of the CDNTs are those who have a direct contact person, a person in play. The same circumstance applies here, so there should at least be communication, but that is not always the case. We are asking for the possibility of a greater run-in time, as proposed initially by the IPPN. It is not as if this is an idea thought up in my head; it comes from a point of view that educators know the issues that exist, everything from an administrative, building and supports point of view to the pressures schools and principals are under to the problems teachers and SNAs have. It is about ensuring we take away some of the pressure on parents and, in particular, on children. We have not fully had their backs. That needs to happen. I am going to leave it at that. I am deeply disappointed that this legislation is not proceeding. As I said, there were opportunities to change and refine it. It is a straightforward idea from the point of view of ensuring schools have enough time. I would like to think there will be some alternative means by which everything will be streamlined, the information deficit will be addressed and, beyond that, we will have a system that makes it as easy as possible for parents to make applications and then transition. If we allow a sufficient amount of time to deal with these problems, it would make things a hell of a lot more helpful. If it is not to be done through this legislation, it will have to be done by some other means. I would like to see movement on that.

Sentiment score: 0.14