Joint Committee on Disability Matters | Alignment of Special Education Policy with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Senator Ivana Bacik:
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak and ask questions of the Minister of State. Other members covered a number of the issues raised with us in emails by parents of children with additional needs. They have expressed to us their immense frustration and told us of the terrible impact the prolonged school closures have had on their children and the regression they have seen. They are seeking clarity and certainty about schools reopening and classes restarting. They are also looking, as the Minister of State knows, for a commitment that there will not be any more on-off school closures. I know the Minister of State has already responded on some of those issues but I would like to get greater clarity on dates and to ensure that once schools open fully - and we appreciate that special schools are already open - that children with additional needs will be able to stay in school and there will not be any more on-off approaches.
I ask specifically about a Labour Party proposal for a catch-up for children scheme. We have proposed that the Government allocate €100 million to structured and targeted interventions so that once schools reopen and we are, hopefully, moving out of Covid restrictions, we will need to first establish precisely what the impacts of prolonged school closures have been for children. We must then enable structured interventions at all stages, for example, additional tuition for children whose literacy or learning has fallen back or who gave regressed in other ways. We have seen a similar scheme in place in the UK.

The Minister of State's colleague, the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, announced a welcome plan this week for the reopening of pubs and nightlife after Covid. We need to see a similar plan to address the impacts on children of prolonged school closures and the losses of everything else, such as sport, extracurricular activities, over the course of the pandemic. The Institute for Fiscal Studies in England has suggested that the costs have been immense for children. We have not seen anything like the level of discourse we need on that in Ireland. I have been attending some webinars organised by the Children's Rights Alliance, which have referred to that issue but we need to see more intervention from the Government to address it.
I make an appeal on behalf of one specific group of parents and children I met earlier today, namely, those involved in Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Ireland. There are children, young adults and older adults with this condition across Ireland who have many needs. I promised the group that I would raise in particular the needs of children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus who are seeking to access education. There has been a real difficulty for many children in this situation who not only require SNA support but also require additional physical support such as nursing support, which has typically been provided by the HSE. Can the Minister of State confirm that a scheme is in place to meet both thephysical needs of these children, in addition to their need for an SNA, and their need to access education?

Minister of State for Special Education and Inclusion Josepha Madigan:
I took a note of the Senator's comments. On the on-off approach, as the Senator described it, I cannot give any guarantees about anything because the Department takes its advice from the public health authorities. I cannot give confirmative information about dates either. I said earlier that the Cabinet is meeting today and there is an indication that special schools will go back to 100% capacity in early March. That is the extent of my knowledge because I am the Minister of State with responsibility for special education and inclusion and my I am limited to that area. The other decisions are not made by me.

On a catch-up scheme, one of the reasons we put in place the supplementary programme, which will be hugely beneficial, is to provide for the catch-up that children with special needs, in particular, will badly need. Practically every member of the committee has mentioned regression. It is a huge issue for children without additional needs, never mind for those with additional needs, and we are conscious of that. We will probably be in a position to expand that supplementary programme at a later stage. If it is the case that schools have to close before the end of this term or in the next term - we hope that will not happen but cannot be sure - it may well be of assistance then. We also have the summer provision under which every child receives a progress card. These progress cards are given to the school and when the children go back to school their teachers then know what skills they have and do not have. That should be of significant benefit to them.

I understand what the Senator is saying about spina bifida and hydrocephalus and she is right that the nurses' list is provided by the HSE. We are developing a nursing programme through the school inclusion model at a cost of €1.3 million. Hopefully that will be of assistance.