With commendable speed, the Minister for Education and Science, Ms Hanafin, has moved to secure significant new resources for those with special education needs. The Minister has sanctioned 295 additional Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) to support children in almost 500 extra schools. In doing so, she openly acknowledged that the speed of response to special needs applications has been too slow in the past.
There are encouraging signs that Ms Hanafin is also determined to deliver what she calls "a faster, more customer-friendly response" to special needs applications. There is much to be done to lift the huge bureaucratic burden from school principals, as they process an application on behalf of a child.
It is not unusual for a school principal to spend several months gathering the various expert reports needed to support an application. This heavy workload can then be followed by months dealing with the Department's bureaucracy - before the merits of the application are even considered.
The new Minister appears to be very conscious of this unsatisfactory situation; she favours a system where individual applications for resource teachers will only be necessary for children with less prevalent disabilities such as autism. A similar "fast-track" system for the allocation of SNAs should also be a priority.
Ms Hanafin has also announced her intention to modify the "weighted system" of resource allocation favoured by her predecessor, Mr Dempsey. While this system had considerable merit in many respects, it could also discriminate against smaller schools because resources were linked in a rigid way to school numbers. A more flexible approach of the kind favoured by the Irish National Teachers Organisation - which has been to the fore in making the case for special needs children - makes eminent sense.
The new posts announced by Ms Hanafin in recent days are in addition to the 300-plus new SNAs appointed to schools this September. There are now almost 6,000 SNAs in Irish schools, compared to less than 300 six years ago. This is a remarkable transformation for which the Government deserves some credit. But most praise must be reserved for those parents who sought to vindicate the rights of their children in the courts. It is regrettable that in many cases they were forced to do so in the face of considerable opposition from the Department of Education and Science.
The increase in the number of SNAs, the passing of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act and the establishment of the new National Council for Special Education mean there is a structure in place which has the potential both to deliver services and formulate a coherent long-term special needs policy. The era where policy was developed in an ad hoc manner, or in response to the latest court ruling, may be drawing to a close.