A TD has described as “heartbreaking” the treatment of a visually impaired secondary school student who applied for his senior cycle Braille books when he was in transition year and got them a week before his Leaving Certificate.
Social Democrats education spokeswoman Jen Cummins said she was “speechless” that “this is how we are treating a child who needs to have Braille books”.
The student was among a group who spoke last week at the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth and one of the examples the Dublin South-Central TD highlighted in the Dáil as she expressed her anger and frustration at the treatment of those with additional needs.
“We are spending gazillions of euro,” she said but the Minister for Education still has to borrow more because of departmental overspend. Inclusive education is “an omnishambles beyond belief”, she added.
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The money “is clearly not being spent properly if we can’t even get a child’s books in Braille for the Leaving Certificate. What is that saying to him as an individual? Is it saying that we do not value him because we did not bother getting him his Braille books? It would not happen in another country.”
She was speaking on Tuesday night during a Dáil debate on a Sinn Féin motion on special education which called for the establishment of an all-party Oireachtas committee on the future of inclusive education, by June 2026, to report within 12 months.
Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton said she intended to establish a forum of key stakeholders, “including parents, advocates, representatives from schools, unions, patrons and interested parties, to deliver a high-level action plan on the next steps”.
The forum will be independently chaired to “provide stakeholder confidence in a robust and child-centred process that can be delivered to meet the needs of children and young people with additional needs”.
But Cummins said another talking shop will just ask people “this, that and the other. The information and answers are there. It doesn’t have to make everything up. It [an inclusive education system] works in other countries, so copy and paste where it works well.”
[ The Irish Times view on education overspending: a worrying annual patternOpens in new window ]
In an impassioned speech, the first-time TD said “I am not able to listen to the constant complaints from people because the system does not work”.
She had contacted Ministers both in and outside the chamber, the education committee had been on to them and she had submitted “umpteen parliamentary questions. I have written letters pleading with them to do something on behalf of my constituents and people around this country, their children and the schools they work in.”
The Opposition had put forward several solutions and “I literally cannot ask the Ministers any more times for the things that need to happen”.
The Sinn Féin motion argued the State “is systematically failing children with additional educational needs, their families and the professionals who support them”.
The party’s education spokesman Darren O’Rourke said “across the State, thousands of families have been failed, ignored and exhausted by a system that claims to offer inclusive education” but instead delivers rationing, “denial and despair”.
[ Parents of children with special needs should not have to fight for everythingOpens in new window ]
He said the State is systematically failing children with additional educational needs. “That is not hyperbole. It’s the lived reality of parents forced into legal action to vindicate their child’s most basic right, the right to an education.
“It’s the reality of children travelling impossible distances outside of their own communities because there is no school place for them at home. It’s the reality of children who are lucky to have a school place but who are there for an hour a day because the support simply is not there.
“It’s also the reality of professionals, principals, teachers, special needs assistants [SNAs] and therapists who are forced to work in a system that fails children and who themselves are not adequately supported.”
The party’s special education spokeswoman Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh said this was Sinn Féin’s fourth Private Members’ motion on special education.
“The issues are only getting worse. The recent SNA crisis, the closure of early intervention classes and having the largest class sizes in Europe show that this Government is failing our children.”
