A father who lost a court case last month over special education for his five-year-old son has called for a free Dáil vote tonight on a motion relating to services for children with autism.
A Fine Gael motion is due to be voted on this evening calling on the Government to fund units which specialise in providing ABA, (applied behavioural analysis), a specialised form of education which can benefit children with autism.
Outside the Dáil yesterday, Cian Ó Cuanacháin, the father of Seán Ó Cuanacháin, yesterday called on the leaders of political parties to allow their deputies to speak and vote freely in the motion.
"This is too important an issue for too many children and too many parents to have it decided by party politics," he said.
"This is about compassion. This about science. This is about evidence. But, first and foremost, this is about how much we treasure the children that need us most."
Mr Ó Cuanacháin said many Government deputies had expressed support for funding ABA for children.
However he said many may not express this view due to the whip system in the Dáil, under which TDs are instructed to vote along party lines.
Government sources say that the whip system will apply as normal in the vote and that a counter-motion to Fine Gael's has been agreed. It is understood that the motion, to be supported by Fianna Fáil, the Greens and the Progressive Democrats, will express support for ABA in the context of other educational approaches.
Fine Gael's motion will call on the Government to recognise the qualifications of psychologists currently working in ABA centres and to expand the current ABA pilot scheme of 12 centres.
The party's spokesman for education, Brian Hayes, said yesterday that parents were being forced to go to court because services which would cater for their children's needs were not available.
Also, he said, the Department of Education was effectively controlling the educational options available to parents.
However, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said ABA was being provided, along with other forms of special education, in newly established classes across the State.
She said some €900 million was being spent on special needs education and that the department's policy on education provision was in line with the conclusions of a special taskforce report published in 2001.
She added that an appeals system for parents who were dissatisfied with services on offer to them was in the process of being set up.
