It is said that fact can be stranger than fiction and the case I wish to discuss shows that can be the case. It is difficult to believe that no speech therapist is available for St. John's School for Special Needs in Dungarvan, where 17 of 45 children need speech and language therapy. Until this year, a therapist came to the school for one day each week, but the needs of the South-Eastern Health Board elsewhere have meant that the therapist's services have been withdrawn. St. John's now employs an assistant who is not qualified, but who is doing an excellent job in the circumstances. The Department of Health and Children merely suggests that the assistant telephones a therapist elsewhere if particular difficulties arise. That is the degree of service that is being provided.
Having discussed this episode with the school authorities and having raised it in this House by way of a question, it seems there has been a disastrous collapse in therapy services as a result of a tug of war between the Departments of Health and Children and Education and Science. I do not blame the Minister, Deputy Martin, as this problem has been developing for a number of years. The Minister and I have both worked as teachers and we know the area of special needs was not really seen as a problem 20 or 30 years ago. Perhaps problems always existed, but the situation has evolved from when children were classified as slow learners. We now face a critical problem and there are not enough qualified people to do a necessary job.
I appreciate that the Bacon report has advocated that the numbers of therapists being trained be quadrupled within 15 years, but schools like St. John's in Dungarvan, where no therapist is available, face immediate difficulties. It is incredible that the therapist that worked in the school for a day each week has been withdrawn. The division of authority between the Departments must have broken down, as one tries to pass the problem to the other. For the sake of the children, I would like to see a resolution to this problem.
The Minister for Health and Children knows that modern procedures are aggravating the problem. Children with a mild handicap are being absorbed into mainstream schooling, which means that schools for children with special needs tend just to cater for disruptive children. Schools are not doing the jobs they were initially established to do. I do not know if the Minister accepts my point that difficulties have emerged as a result of the absorption of well behaved children with special needs problems into regular schools. Special needs schools are left to cater for the dis ruptive element which is not accepted by mainstream schools. The disruptive nature of many pupils means that each class now needs an assistant to help teachers.