State is failing children with special needs

Sir, – Once again the July provision has gathered enormous publicity and yet again many schools cannot run the scheme as Department of Education rates are simply not attractive enough to attract sufficient special needs assistants (SNAs) to actually run the scheme.

As is now par for the course, the Department of Education has left it to schools to deal with the mess that is primarily a consequence of its decision making.

For many Irish children with special needs, access to mainstream summer camps is simply not an option and the July provision is (or was) their only option during the lengthy school summer holidays.

We have a Minister for Equality and we have a Children’s Ombudsman yet neither ever seems to have anything to say about the now annual discriminatory treatment of Irish children with special needs.

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How is it equitable that some Irish children have access to a wide range of summer camps while other Irish children have access to absolutely nothing in terms of summer camps?

The Department of Health (through the HSE) has for years been unable to attract sufficient competent medical staff, with the inevitable huge increase in waiting lists and in particular for disability services.

This position is now increasingly mirrored in the Department of Education, with the July provision largely existing as little more than a political marketing stunt for many children with special needs.

Many Irish parents of children with special needs have been forced to take High Court actions both to secure services and to secure access to education.

When parents take successful cases, the Irish taxpayer inevitably foots the legal bill and there are never any consequences for senior officials in either the Department of Health (through the HSE) or the Department of Education. Nothing changes and the process begins all over again for the next child and their parents.

One increasingly has to ask whether all the taxpayer spending on the Department of Health, Department of Education, Department of Equality and Children’s Ombudsman would not be better directed to parents of children with special needs?

This way, rather than wasting time trying to engage with departments that have shown time and time again that they simply cannot be trusted to provide services to children with special needs, parents could focus on securing services for their children themselves. – Yours, etc,

RUARY MARTIN,

Sandyford,

Dublin 18.