I thank the Chair for allowing me the opportunity to raise this matter. I attempted to resolve it by direct correspondence with the Minister and by way of parliamentary question and when those avenues failed I sought the recourse of the Adjournment Debate.
Members may not be aware that St. Patrick's national school in Drumcondra is associated with St. Patrick's training school and viewed as a premier education venue. Members may not be aware that it has a special facility for children on the northside with impaired hearing and provides an important education stream for those with hearing difficulties, but I do not raise this matter on their behalf.
Two wheelchair bound children are being provided with mainline primary education in the school. They require assistance for a variety of reasons including access to toilet facilities and the upstairs and downstairs of the two storey school built to accommodate mobile children. The school employs FÁS trainees to assist the children in question, but those assistants, who are required to attend training courses on certain days, are not available every weekday and the children's parents have been asked to fill in for them. Those of us who are parents realise that parenting is difficult enough, but when one is the parent of a handicapped child, it is extremely difficult. It is an additional burden on parents who are already very stretched to request them to present themselves at school to help their children. If those parents do not present themselves, their children, who are aged ten to 12, are assisted by teachers or pupils of their own age who lift them up and down the stairs, with the consequent danger that poses.
I made this case directly to the Minister and she has made an important and admirable strategic decision this year to concentrate all her resources this area in the provision of a 15:1 ratio in areas of special disadvantage. Perhaps the Minister of State can explain why the Minister has not left herself flexibility to respond to the most serious cases of this kind, where there is no support for the teachers and pupils who share a classroom with the two children in question and who try to fill in for the classroom assistants, to facilitate this desirable development, the education of handicapped children in mainline schools, which we all support. Surely there must be classroom assistants who do not require replacement in the existing venue.
I understand the Minister's priority and I supported her attempt to break the cycle of disadvantage to which she will allocate all her resources in this area next year, but there must be flexibility to respond to these cases. I argue that this case involving two wheelchair bound children, whose parents are required to come in on a regular basis to school to ensure that their children are able to manoeuvre the school and gain access to toilet and other basic facilities, is special. If we are serious about integrating handicapped children, we must be able to provide these additional services. It is no accident that people at the later stage of their lives were arguing for similar services outside this House today, but such services are equally important at this stage of those children's lives. I ask the Minister to consider this case. I know there are other cases, that of autistic children in the special autistic school, but I argue for the case I outlined. The Minister should allow some flexibility to respond to such cases and I ask her to consider my case in particular.
