Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate – Dáil Éireann (33rd Dáil) – Wednesday, 26 Apr 2023

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Special Educational Needs

Deputy Alan Dillon

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this matter for debate. I acknowledge the presence of the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne. I also acknowledge the excellent work done by the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, in the area of special education and inclusion. It is very important that the Government has established this area within the Department. I also thank the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, for her recent visits to County Mayo and for her engagement with key stakeholders in the area of special education and inclusion.

The issue I am raising is a serious one that is causing much distress to pupils, parents, teachers and school principals in Castlebar. There is a shortage of places to enrol children in special schools. In recent weeks, I have received numerous representations from special education schools to the effect that they are facing real challenges as we enter the final school term before the summer break, with preparations now being made for enrolments for the 2023-24 academic year.

The first problem is the lack of forecasting of future enrolments at local level by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE. While I support and welcome the appointment of the new NCSE director, the issue of forecasting has manifested as a serious problem. The lack of forecasting relating to placements for children by the NCSE means that schools are being left to resolve problems themselves, which is completely unacceptable. The Department's geographical information management system includes real-time data on capacity throughout the school system. It is the NCSE that should be managing this.

In recent weeks, one special education school in Castlebar had 15 inquiries for enrolment next September. The principal has informed me that the majority, if not all, of these queries have been made by parents whose children in all likelihood fit the moderate to severe general learning disabilities for which the school caters. All of these queries have been made directly to the school by parents since February. This is complete madness and parents should not be engaging directly. This is the job of the NCSE and the special education needs organisers. They should be co-ordinating this forecasting exercise to ensure we have a coherent and comprehensive overview of special class enrolment.

I have spoken to the principal of St. Brid's Special National School in Castlebar. It is in a desperate situation to ensure it has capacity in the system to accommodate pupils. The Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, has visited the school and knows the conditions in which the staff are working. Unless it is offered additional accommodation, which is not forthcoming, the school will not be in a position to offer even one of these 15 children a place. This is outrageous.

Another special school, St. Anthony's School, has been allocated an additional teacher by the NCSE to cater for the needs of the pupils in the school at present. The NCSE has confirmed that this teacher will continue to be needed in September to allow the school to enrol children with special needs who have applied for school places for the 2023-24 academic year. It has run out of classroom space to accommodate the extra teacher. The school is interviewing prospective teachers for the post, but it has been left without a classroom. We need to escalate dealing with this issue, particularly with regard to Castlebar in County Mayo, to ensure that these pupils are not left behind. We are all aware of them. They are part of the children's disability network teams. They have already been assessed for special needs. I ask for a focus on these two schools in particular and that we get a resolution to the problems.

Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (Deputy Thomas Byrne)

I thank Deputy Dillon for raising this issue. He is dead right to do so. I agree with enabling pupils with additional needs to receive an education appropriate to their needs. This is an ongoing priority for the Government. Another priority for the Government is to ensure that all children have an appropriate school placement and that the necessary supports are provided to our schools to cater for the needs of children with special educational needs. This year, the Department will spend in excess of €2.6 billion, or more than 27% of the budget, on providing additional teaching and care supports for children with special educational needs, and rightly so. In 2022, funding was provided for an additional 980 teachers and 1,165 special needs assistants.

For 2023, the Department has further increased the number of teaching and special needs assistant, SNA, posts in our schools. There will be an additional 686 teachers and a further 1,194 SNAs in our schools next year as a result.

Budget 2023 also provided funding for additional staffing in the NCSE and the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. This will ensure that our schools and students benefit from additional practical supports from special educational needs organisers, SENOs, NCSE advisers and educational psychologists.

The NCSE has responsibility for co-ordinating and advising on the education provision for children nationwide. The Department has engaged intensely with it in the context of forward planning for new special classes and special school places for the 2023-24 school year. This work involves a detailed review of statistical data relating to forecasting demand for special class places, consideration of improved data sharing arrangements, consideration of available school accommodation and a particular focus on the provision of special classes at post-primary level.

As Deputy Dillon will be aware, on 12 April, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, provided an update on the progress being made in respect of meeting the needs of children with special educational needs for the coming school year. Two new special schools are being established in the next school year, one in Carrigtwohill in east Cork and one in the Dublin 7 area, with further capacity being expanded in 11 other special schools. This will bring to seven the number of new special schools established in recent years. The NCSE has also sanctioned 218 new special classes nationwide at primary and post-primary level for the coming school year. Of those, six are located in County Mayo - three at primary level and three at post-primary level. These new classes will bring the total number of special classes in County Mayo to 62, which is 43 at primary level and 19 post-primary level. Additional special classes will be sanctioned in the coming weeks.

Deputy Alan Dillon

The Minister of State is filling in for the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. The reality for St. Brid's Special School and St. Anthony's School is that there is no alternative placement for many of these children in Castlebar. It is a scary thought that up to 14 or 15 extremely vulnerable children could be left without secure school placements for the 2023-24 school year.

Recently, the Ombudsman for Children, Dr. Niall Muldoon, said that the planning and resourcing of special education needs to catch up with the forecasting after a report by his office highlighted the serious shortcomings throughout the country. This is evident in what I am presenting this morning. One figure of concern that Dr. Muldoon discussed is the number of children with special educational need who are in the wrong placements, such as those in special classes who need to be in special schools or children who are in mainstream classes but who need to be in special classes. Some parents may simply have taken what was offered rather than what was needed.

The Minister of State referred to funding. I welcome the Department's commitment to 25% of the total budget being spent on special education but I believe we need to act a lot more swiftly with regard to the actual placements. St. Brid's cannot wait any longer for this additional accommodation. It needs to be sanctioned with speed. I am aware that the Department of Education's building and planning unit has engaged with the principal, but September is just around the corner. For the good of St. Brid's and St. Anthony's, I ask the Minister of State to revert to the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, and the Department officials to get a commitment that this additional accommodation will be sanctioned. We need to provide these specialist supports and services for students and ensure that we have effective solutions. These should be implemented with speed and efficiency. This accommodation is crucially important to ensure that these children have a bright future, that their parents are supported and that they have adequate education provision into the years ahead.

Deputy Thomas Byrne

The Deputy is absolutely correct to raise these issues. Every child has a constitutional right to primary education and to the right to education in a public setting. The Department is working very hard to make sure that is the case. The Deputy is absolutely right to raise these issues. I will certainly bring them back directly to the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, who could not be here this morning, and the Minister. There are huge resources being provided.

There is a change in how these things are forecast, but that is always a very difficult task. I have outlined already that it is intended that further special classes will be sanctioned in the next few weeks. The Department and the NCSE have undertaken a number of new strategic initiatives to provide sufficient class spaces in primary and post-primary schools. This has happened as a result of collaboration and co-operation of schools, school leaders, boards, patrons and trustees. The provision of new special classes can make the difference and can be the difference between children with special educational needs accessing education, which allows them to reach their full potential, or otherwise remaining in settings unsuited to their needs. I agree with the Deputy that this is not the way things should be. As part of the budget, there are additional staff in all areas of this sector to ensure that people's special educational needs are met.

I hope I have provided some insight into the work that is going on. I look forward to the announcements in the coming weeks. I have no doubt that the Minister, the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, and the officials will engage further with the planning and building unit, and will be in touch with the school as part of their ongoing engagement. They will certainly bear in mind everything the Deputy has said here today, about which nobody could argue.

Insurance Industry

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

I do not believe that any of us is happy about the issue of public liability insurance. It was in the first six months of last year that we had a drop in the cost of motor insurance premiums of approximately 5%. I do not believe that anybody is of the view that this is sufficiently significant. The Government has indicated that 90% of its action plan for insurance reform is done and that the insurance industry is aware of what has to follow. I would expect that the issue relating to the duty-of-care legislation will be dealt with as soon as possible, in whatever shape or form. It is way beyond time that this was done.

With regard to public liability insurance, we have all heard Peter Boland of the Alliance for Insurance Reform and others speaking about a 14% increase in the cost of renewal premiums. This is before we consider those people who are caught up in circumstances of claims. People have insurance in the event that claims are brought against them. In some cases, people can find themselves in really desperate circumstances, so it is absolutely necessary. We know, however, that there is a particular issue in this regard. There are huge numbers of SMEs and businesses in the entertainment, tourism and leisure sectors that cannot get insurance and cannot get premiums that are fit to pay. We all know that there probably is not a company in Ireland that uses inflatables for its operations that can get the sort of insurance it requires. That is shocking. I would have always thought that when an issue reached a critical point that the system, with all its flaws, would catch it. Sometimes there is a major level of drift, and this is not acceptable.

Brendan Kenny, the CEO of Ireland's Association for Adventure Tourism, has spoken of 250 businesses that are threatened with closure. This would have an impact on those businesses, the people who own them, their employees and others. We talk about the tourism sector and how we want to sell Ireland, but any closures will have a massive impact. We are already in disastrous waters and are heading into far worse waters. We really need to call a halt to what is going on.

We have spoken before about the actions taken by the office to promote competition in the insurance market. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, has met with the insurance industry and told it about the dissatisfaction that exists, but we need to get beyond that and see action happening.

There has been an issue with regard to public liability insurance in that we do not have enough players in the market. I hope this matter has moved on slightly. The Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, will tell me that Ireland is a small market. This does not matter because at the end of the day we must be able to sustain these businesses. The buck stops with the Government, the Minister of State, the Minister for Finance and with others who deal with the insurance sector. Representatives of companies such as Zipit Forest Adventures, which is owned by Cool Running Events, have spoken to RTÉ about their problems. A number of companies in my constituency have had issues too. There were also insurance issues at one stage with regard to childcare. In some cases, a number of interests were able to come together and get group deals and so on. That is not always possible in other sectors.

I put it to the Minister of State that, in the context of all the difficulties that exist, we need to have an operational public liability insurance system that will work for SMEs or we are going to hit the wall.

I hope the Minister of State has some good news for me.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill)

I thank Deputy Ó Murchú, who has raised a couple of different issues, including motor insurance and public liability. Let me separate the different issues and respond. The Deputy has quite correctly raised the outstanding public liability work that has to be done, and the impact which that has. He also raised motor insurance and said there was a reduction of 5% in the first half of last year. I presume the Deputy is referring to the national claims information database, NCID report published yesterday. He said that it is not sufficient, and of course he is right that it is not sufficient. It was a 20% reduction going back to 2017 from the peak of premiums and it was an additional 5% last year, at a time of an inflationary environment.

Those reductions are very important, but the reason they have been achieved is because of the programme of reform that the Government has instituted regarding insurance: changing the law on perjury and fraud and changing the operating environment for personal injuries, particularly soft tissue and small injuries that were being overwhelmingly litigated in courts. Now we see that because of the changes, matters are being resolved at the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, PIAB more quickly, more efficiently and at one twentieth of the legal costs. It is those legal costs, and the uncertainty of the claims system, that drove policies far too high. We are seeing the impact. As the Deputy said, I have met all of the different insurance companies. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, has met Insurance Ireland with me, and we have pressed very clearly the need to continue to see reductions in motor policy. The reason I am saying that is because the impact of the reforms has worked in motor insurance and it is our job now to make sure that it continues to work, that the personal injury guidelines are robust and that the PIAB process is protected at every turn.

Turning to public liability, which is a different issue and is more directly relevant to the particular centre which Deputy Ó Murchú and I have discussed. I thank him for raising it with me directly. Public liability remains outstanding, and that is a matter for the Department of Justice, which is bringing through the House at this time legislation to change the operating environment for public liability insurance. I can assure the Deputy that in all of my meetings with different insurance companies I raised the question of expanding their risk appetite further into different sectors, whether it is provision of more insurance for SMEs generally, such as high street shops. Some of the companies are and some are waiting for the legislation and the new operating environment. I also raised the different pinch points, some of which the Deputy has referenced. He is correct, and many of those have been resolved by coming together through group schemes, through creating a centralised hazard management system and being able to present that collectively to underwriters to be able to get a better deal, spread the risk and get insurance where it had not been. The Deputy is aware that the background to that, if we take for example motorcycle racing or different issues, is that many of those smaller sectors - as the Deputy has said, it is a small market - previously obtained insurance through the UK market and through a broker where the risk was spread over the UK and Ireland. Brexit disrupted that. It was one of the consequences of it. It disrupted the provision of that, the underwriting and the broker model. Many of those sectors have now had to go and find new insurance and present as a new model. Many of them have been successful and there remain those outstanding. I assure the Deputy that I raise that with every insurance company and we are trying to enhance the risk appetite where we can. However, the public liability legislation is absolutely essential.

Deputy Ó Murchú also referenced the office to promote competition in the insurance market. I had a meeting just yesterday with that office regarding updates. I have also met a new insurance provider which is coming into the market and is going through the regulatory process with the Central Bank. I have referenced that before, OUTsurance, which has made its application to the Central Bank. That is directly as a consequence, I am told by the company, of the changes that the Government has made. There are new insurers coming into this market because we are making it a more predictable insurance environment for insurers who want to be able to provide certainty, so that they can provide lower policies and better access to insurance for everybody.

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

As I said previously, I welcome any news regarding any new players coming into the market. Obviously, we need them to come into the market and then offer something that is fair and reasonable. I think it was the president of the European Confederation of Outdoor Employers who spoke about what we are dealing with at this point in time as being very much an Irish phenomenon. An example was given in Portugal of €400 public liability insurance for a company with a turnover of €50,000. We really need to be getting into that sort of bracket.

What I heard from the Minister of State is that there is ongoing engagement. Am I to expect that there will be an improvement on premiums when we get the duty of care legislation finished? Of the insurance companies which were looking to come in regarding public liability insurance, are we fairly sure from the engagement with them that we will see an improvement and something that is viable? Has there been engagement with the likes of Brendan Kenny, Peter Boland and others regarding the difficulties that they represent? We really need to make sure we are not dealing with the madness of the issue I brought up before with the community centre in my own local area having to raise over €12,000 through GoFundMe. That, obviously, is not sustainable on a year-by-year basis.

At this time, there are a number of reforms being brought through. I can easily say that all of this should have happened a lot earlier. We would all accept it should have. We have reached an absolute crisis period, so we need to make sure that this is done absolutely swiftly and it would probably have been a lot easier if we had not created a set of circumstances where some of these insurers left. However, the pressure has to be put on them. I understand the constraints of the Government. However, after introducing the necessary reforms, followed by engagement, we then need something that will actually work for the SMEs. The tourism industry and all the other related sectors require it.

Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill

I am glad to hear that Deputy Ó Murchú takes that approach, that it is about changing the insurance environment and that it is about engagement. However, and I know he is not suggesting it, the Government cannot get directly involved in the setting of insurance or get involved in the market in that way. I know that it is not what he is suggesting.

I assure the Deputy that I have met the Alliance for Insurance Reform, that the Minister for Finance, Deputy McGrath, has also met them, that I am meeting Fáilte Ireland very shortly and that I have met with individual sectors which have experienced insurance difficulty. I engage directly with people to set out the work that is being done to try and provide reassurance. Again however, this is a market-based economy. We want insurers to come here, to be able to operate and to create an environment where more are likely to come. We are seeing the effect of that through the reforms which have been successfully introduced regarding motor insurance. We are seeing Revolut, OUTsurance and others coming into that market. We are now doing the same work in respect of public liability and we are substantially changing the culture of insurance in Ireland. The culture of slips, trips and falls which the Occupiers' Liability Act, the duty of care legislation, is targeted at addressing, is particularly prevalent in the heavy footfall, public-facing areas, many of which the Deputy has referenced. That, I hope, will potentially unlock further liability insurance capacity for businesses in that sector.

We have changed, successfully, the operating environment in motor insurance and we have constantly to watch that as well. We have to make sure that it is bedded down, that PIAB is really working and that solicitors are not inclined to try and drift things into the courts, where people are not going to get a better outcome. The data that was presented by the NCID yesterday showed clearly that over the period from 2015 to 2021, the difference between the PIAB outcome and the court outcome was nearly identical. However, one gets the PIAB outcome in half the time, and at one twentieth of the cost. Everybody should realise that those costs are borne by everybody else, the Deputy's family and friends, and my family and friends, when they are going to get their policies renewed. As a society and as a collective, we need to do anything that we can to reduce those costs in managing claims. People who are entitled to claims are absolutely entitled to their process, and that is absolutely fine. They need to be supported and their claims resolved. However, what we can do collectively to reduce that and support that operating environment is very important. We have done that with motor insurance and we need to continue to do that with public liability.

Industrial Relations

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

Last week, I organised an audiovisual room briefing on the campaign to reinstate the Murphy Four. The four men are members of the Unite trade union. I invited Deputies and Senators to hear about the appalling treatment and the dismissal of these workers by the engineering and construction company, J. Murphy and Sons Limited, also more commonly known as Murphy International.

Before Christmas 2022, four Unite members working for Murphy International in Limerick were dismissed. That four included one Unite shop steward. Unite believes that the workers were unfairly singled out, victimised and targeted for what was essentially legitimate trade union activity. Our workplaces will never be safe for any worker, as long as workers' representatives are not protected from victimisation. Between them, the men had 50 years of service and my understanding is without a blemish of any record. They had given good and loyal service to that company.

One of the men was not able to travel on the day, but he sent a letter. I will read part of it into the record. He wrote that:

It is hard to put into words how my dismissal has affected me and my family. The whole dismissal process seemed so unfair. Many people took the...exact same action yet only four were dismissed. It is hard to see how this can be justified.

Following my dismissal, I found it very difficult to get social welfare. It was decided that because I had been dismissed, unfairly I would add, that I was not entitled to it. I had to fight a case that went on for months during which time I received no payment despite having paid PRSI my entire adult life. I ended up having to take an appeal...[which was] eventually decided in my favour. I found this whole process so humiliating....

It has been very difficult for me to obtain another job, having been left in my 50s without a reference from my previous employer...

I am now taking a case to the WRC [but] I am told this could take years.

Now, I understand, because I have been on both sides of this, that there is a limit to what the Government can do. I also understand, though, that no Government should stand over treatment like this, not while the same Government is engaged in contracts with the company concerned. These men were dismissed, as the union said, for legitimate trade union activity. They were not organising for the goal of seeking a massive pay increase, but to simply have the recognised rate for the job applied to them, as well as the terms and conditions to go along with that. They did not have those and they were perfectly entitled to seek them. These men, however, now find themselves in a situation where, because they were dismissed, they have struggled to access social welfare payments.

We have seen employers take to the courts to challenge employment regulation orders, EROs. Effectively, what happens is that the increases and terms due to workers just get caught up in a legal process. Meanwhile, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, workers cannot access what is the generally agreed rate for their job. Many of these employers know this, and what happened in respect of what we call the Murphy Four was very calculated. The company is exploiting a significant shortfall in the unfair dismissals legislation. It is nearly worth an employer's time to take a chance in this regard because the compensation is so small for a worker in the case of unfair dismissal. It is very hard to prove and the compensation is very small when it is proven.

The impact of this situation on these workers has been phenomenal. My main request today is for the Government to lend its support to the campaign. I do not expect to see any Ministers or Ministers of State taking to picket lines or protests, but this is a company that has major contracts with the State. These workers were not looking for a massive pay rise, and even if they were there is nothing outrageous about doing that, but simply for the application of what is generally accepted to be the pay rate for the job.

Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill

I have a difficulty because this is not a court. This is a conversation about a matter referred to by the Deputy that may, in fact, go in front of a court in terms of a dispute resolution process. I have every sympathy with every workplace issue, but without getting into the details of any individuals or any company. This is not a conversation I believe should be happening in this Chamber, particularly when there are potentially live matters at stake for a different statutory dispute resolution body and where reputational issues are involved as well. I will not, therefore, get into this issue. This is a Chamber for debating the dispute resolution and industrial relations mechanisms generally, but not at an individual level. This is not a court.

Ireland's system of industrial relations is well set out in statute law. It is important that the autonomy of employee and employer bodies and their respective members are respected in resolving their differences through the statutory system. The State provides the industrial relations disputes settlement mechanisms, including the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, to which the Deputy has referred, and the Labour Court, to support parties in their efforts to resolve their differences. The WRC and the Labour Court are independent, statutory bodies. They are independent of this House. It has been the consistent policy of successive Governments to develop an institutional framework supportive of that system and it is premised on the freedom of contract, the freedom of association and the articulation of rights through a statutory resolution process which is well set out in law and agreed by this House.

There is an extensive range of statutory provisions designed to back up that system. The Unfair Dismissal Acts 1977 to 2016 provide for a number of grounds under which a dismissal may be considered unfair, including membership or proposed membership of a trade union or engaging in trade union activities, whether within permitted times during work or outside of working hours.

Again, I do not want to get into specifics. In any situation, however, where parties can come together in an effort to resolve issues outside a court and a formal dispute resolution process, it is generally better for the parties involved. Where that cannot be achieved, though, there is the capacity to refer a complaint to the WRC under the Unfair Dismissal Acts 1977 to 2016 and complaints will, I hope, be fairly heard by an adjudicating officer. I do not believe this is the Chamber for discussing individual matters of this kind and, frankly, I am surprised by this.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

I will use my time here to raise issues concerning workers and workers' rights, as is my right. Indeed, if there was any prospect of this debate being ruled out of order, it would not be happening. It is entirely appropriate to raise issues where victimisation is alleged and where the industrial relations mechanisms are not working for the people involved. This is a simple fact. Some of these workers will have to wait, potentially, for years now. We could get into a debate about how the Government has underfunded the WRC and we could probably be here all day talking about that. I do not thank the Minister of State, though, for a lecture about what is and is not contained within the industrial relations machinery. I know this. I also know there have been many debates on the floor of this Chamber on many occasions regarding workers' rights because this is an appropriate forum. I organised the briefing in the audiovisual room because I wanted to make our Deputies and Senators aware of what was happening and of this serious issue, and put on the record that while this is going on the Government has contracts or subcontracts with the company involved.

I welcome that the Minister of State is urging the parties to come together, but is she going to or is she prepared to do anything more than that? I ask this because these workers have, effectively, been locked out of their workplace. They want to be reinstated. They just want their jobs back. In their opinion, they have done nothing wrong and this matter may well be before the WRC at some point, but that is not a court either. This House is most definitely not a court, but it is a debating Chamber and I am entitled to ask on behalf of people what it is the Government might be prepared to do.

The Minister of State's script states that she "would urge the parties to come together in an effort to resolve the issues". Is she prepared to do any more than that? Does she think it is acceptable that these workers have, effectively, been locked out of their workplace? What they want to do is to get back to work. What they want to be able to do is to go back to earning money, which they had been doing to keep body and soul together.

Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill

What I said, irrespective of the script, was that I urge all parties to resolve their difficulties, without getting into the specifics of any individual case. The Deputy is entitled to use her time her way and I am also entitled to express my opinion. I am also entitled to say that the reason I do not want to get into the specifics, and I do not know if the Deputy has assumed bad faith or something on my part, is that I do not wish to prejudice any future process. This is a matter that may go to a dispute resolution mechanism and I do not wish to prejudice any party by discussing it in the Dáil in advance of that happening. Ireland has a robust suite of employment rights and legislation to protect and support workers and the predictability and stability of that framework is extremely important. Everybody must comply with that. I do not want to get into commenting on the merits of an individual case in this Chamber, as it is a matter that the industrial relations bodies of the State can, and may yet, deal with. I do not, therefore, wish to risk prejudicing any party in this regard by discussing this matter as an individual case in this Chamber.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not think that the Deputy was discussing the details of the case. I very much appreciate what the Minister of State is saying and I am very aware of it, but regarding the details of the case, and the Deputy is experienced in respect of industrial relations, I do not think-----

Sitting suspended at 9.50 a.m. and resumed at 10 a.m.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 26 Apr 2023