Parents of children with special needs have to “go to war” to find a school place, an Oireachtas committee has been told.
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, the Labour senator, said he was horrified to learn what families endured and that some who had contacted him were in tears. Fundamental change is needed, he told the education committee.
“The process seems to be that the special needs organiser hands the parents a list of schools and says ‘best of luck’,” he said. “I know of parents who have gone to 15 or 16 schools to try to access a place. So not only are you dealing with a challenging situation of dealing with a diagnosis, you almost have to go to war with the system in order to access a school place. There seems to be no absolute right for a school place.”
Ó Ríordáin asked representatives of the Department of Education and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) how they could preside over such a system.
Mary McGrath, the NCSE head of operations, admitted that were “pinch points” where some parents found it difficult to secure a place. But she told TDs and senators that special educational needs organisers (SENOs) were on hand to advise parents.
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“The SENOs are engaging with schools on a continuous cycle and planning additional special classes and placements and those places are confirmed at different points of time in the year,” she said. “SENOs are updating parents who are seeking special school and special class places as those new placements become available.
“We do at certain points in time experience pinch points in various parts of the country and we have to date triggered the legislation which commenced in 2018, twice in Dublin, where schools who did have some space were not responding to requests from SENOs to open special classes.”
Ó Ríordáin told the committee that he was not satisfied with McGrath’s response because some parents found it so hard that they gave up. “There doesn’t seem to be a policy determination from the department that there’s an absolute right to a school place and the SENO has to find that place,” he said. “It’s up to the parents. We have to have a fundamental overview and review about how the system interacts with parents who are completely exhausted . . . I think this is a massive failing.”
Martina Mannion, assistant secretary at the Department of Education, said nobody wanted parents to have such experiences and that in some circumstances they had to “resort” to legislation to ensure they could enforce rights for children.
Mannion told TDs and senators that this year the state would spend more than two billion euro, or more than 20 per cent of the education budget, on providing additional support for children with special educneeds. This represents an increase of more than 50 per cent since 2011. She said that Budget 2021 provided funding for 400 additional special education teaching posts and almost 1,000 additional special needs assistants (SNAs).