Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 18 May 2004

Vol. 585 No. 5

Adjournment Debate.

Departmental Bodies.

Mr. McGinley

In 2002, Dr. Michael Ryan was appointed chairman of the Civil Defence Board by the then Minister of State at the Department of Defence and Government Chief Whip, Deputy Brennan. Speaking of the appointment at the time, Deputy Brennan indicated that he was highly delighted that people of the highest calibre had agreed to serve on the board during a very important phase in the development of the Civil Defence. Just over a year ago, the Minister for Defence, Deputy Michael Smith, signed the order formally establishing the board. He predicted that in a very short while the board would be in a position to take over the effective control of the organisation at national level from the Department of Defence.

It appears the Minister for Defence in pursuing decentralisation in a manner which lacks consideration or consultation has squandered the positive relationship between his Department and the board. The relationship has deteriorated to the extent that legal advice has been taken and the chairman, in whom the Minister had formerly such confidence, is being squeezed out of his position.

On 23 April 2003, the Minister for Defence requested the Secretary General of his Department to investigate the manner in which Dr. Ryan was carrying out his duties as chairman of the Civil Defence Board. On 4 May, earlier this month, the Minister wrote to Dr. Ryan to inform him clearly and unambiguously that he was contemplating removing him from his position as chairman and revoking his membership of the board. This is indicative of the turn-about in relations between the chairman of the Civil Defence Board and the Minister for Defence. The chairman was appointed on the recommendation of the Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, and the Minister, Deputy Michael Smith, has professed his full confidence in Dr. Ryan's abilities. How quickly this has changed, with the Minister for Defence now taking the highly provocative action of asking his officials to trawl through the minutes of meetings of the Civil Defence board and asking people to report on telephone conversations they had with Dr. Ryan.

While the Government has always maintained that decentralisation would be a voluntary matter for those involved, the Department of Defence appears to be asserting in the most adamant fashion that decentralisation of Civil Defence headquarters will go ahead without reference to the concerns of the board or the 30 or so staff who will be affected. Paramount among these concerns is the suitability of the proposed building to house headquarters. The proposed building which is located at an industrial estate on the outskirts of Roscrea has been leased by the Office of Public Works. The Civil Defence board proposes the creation of a school of civil defence offering diplomas and degree courses in emergency management. There is considerable concern that the leased building will not meet the requirements of running these courses. The decentralisation of staff from Dublin to Roscrea has run into difficulties as a result of the Minister's insistence on this accommodation without consulting the board. This gung-ho attitude is contrary to stated Government policy on decentralisation and may ultimately prove damaging to the operation of the Civil Defence.

Civil defence is often critical to the security and protection of people everywhere. With more than 6,000 volunteers under the authority of 32 Civil Defence officers, the provision of a volunteer civil defence capability is relied upon for the smooth and safe running of many events. Civil Defence volunteers offer invaluable support to the Garda and Defence Forces which should be built upon, not weakened. Unfortunately, in his haste to relocate Civil Defence headquarters to his home town, the Minister for Defence appears to have placed a much higher priority on local political advantage than on engaging in meaningful dialogue with the Civil Defence Board. The Minister must clarify his role in this matter without delay.

Minister for Defence (Mr. M. Smith)

It is patent nonsense to suggest there is a developing crisis within the Civil Defence Board. I am involved in a course of action on the position of its chairman and I have valid and strong reasons for embarking on this course of action. As the process is ongoing, it would be inappropriate for me to make further comment at this stage. I expect that the matter will come to a conclusion within the next two weeks.

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending a major Civil Defence exercise in Sligo. In the course of my address to the Civil Defence members who had participated in the exercise, I expressed my pride in and commitment to the organisation. The Government is grateful to each member of the Civil Defence for his or her commitment and huge contribution to the organisation, local communities and the wider public.

As a strong believer and advocate of the Civil Defence, I have always been of the view that the organisation must be properly equipped to carry out its duties. I am very pleased to say that since I became Minister for Defence in 1997, over €7 million has been expended on the purchase of equipment by the Department of Defence for issue to local authorities for Civil Defence use. This equipment includes a total of 116 vehicles of all types with a total purchase value of €2.6 million, protective clothing and specialised footwear to a value of over €2 million and 22 inflatable boats to a value of €300,000 for use in river, lake and shore rescue operations. This expenditure has been facilitated by the increase in the Civil Defence budget of €635,000 per annum since 2000, as promised in the White Paper on Defence. While part of this funding has been directed to increased training grants for local authorities, the majority has been used to augment the quantity and quality of Civil Defence equipment.

The invaluable assistance provided by Civil Defence volunteers in times of national crisis, including the recent foot and mouth disease threat, together with the major role played by the Civil Defence in flood relief efforts in Dublin and adjoining counties, the midlands, south and west has justifiably been recognised by the public. More recently, the extensive involvement of the Civil Defence in the Special Olympics World Games around the country and in the ceremonies at Croke Park has considerably raised the profile of the organisation. The decentralisation of Civil Defence headquarters to Roscrea is in its final stages. The organisation will be moving into its new offices during the summer.

Special Educational Needs.

Mr. McGuinness

I raise this matter in the context of the serious difficulties parents of autistic children in Kilkenny and my constituency generally have had in obtaining an assessment and discovering where on the autistic spectrum their children lie. As a result, they have had to go to the great expense of attending consultants in England and in Dublin. Consultants have come to visit the families of autistic children also. It is difficult enough for families to deal with these problems at home in the absence of support and assistance from the State without having to travel across or outside the country to obtain the assessments they need to determine where children should go to school or to receive the intervention they require. Needs can be particular to the child and the family concerned.

The degree of difficulty faced by these families is so great that they picketed the offices of the South Eastern Health Board some months ago to highlight their problems. Since then, they have received the same lack of response from the health board which they continually received previously. That is unacceptable. To take matters into their own hands, the parents in question have located a school building in Goresbridge in County Kilkenny. The structure of the building is sound.

At a meeting with officials from the Department of Education and Science seeking assistance, which I attended with Mr. Marc de Salvo, they were told a comprehensive response would be given within 30 days. To date, only some queries have been answered. Last week, they were informed that some moneys would be available but not for the development of the school.

While we are waiting on reports, families are suffering. It has been proven that autistic children become better at school and are at the point of entering mainstream education when assessment and intervention take place. There is an onus on the Department to be proactive in this matter and not for the information to be dragged from it. I noted at the Committee on Public Accounts that a suitable property in Myshall was passed from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to the Department of Health and Children. The South Eastern Health Board has admitted the property is too far from its operations to be of use. If funding is the problem, then the health board can sell this property, ring fence the proceeds for the proposed school at Goresbridge and immediately invest the money in the development proposed by the families.

The families have taken advice from all quarters on this matter. All that is needed is support from the Government and the South Eastern Health Board in order to carry out the assessments and define the supports and intervention for the children involved . The Department of Education and Science can then acknowledge that the building is sound for housing the New Horizons project in County Kilkenny. From there, it could satisfy the need for those dealing with this problem in their own time and homes.

During the meeting in Athlone with departmental officials, I acknowledged the difficulties and frustrations with bureaucracy faced by these families. Will the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science remove these obstacles and give the families encouragement rather than challenges? Will the health board dispose of the property so as to fund a proper special school for autistic children in Goresbridge?

Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science (Mr. B. Lenihan)

I am pleased to outline to the House the position on the establishment of a special facility for children with autism at Goresbridge, County Kilkenny.

The Department of Education and Science is actively considering the application referred to by the Deputy. Officials from the Department are liaising with the Department's inspectorate, the National Educational Psychological Service and the patron bodies. I can confirm that one of the officials from the Department was in recent contact with a member of the parents' representative group. The Department confirmed that, as a matter of general policy, it is favourably disposed to making educational provision for children with autism as and when required. The details of each application have to be examined carefully, having regard to such matters as the assessment reports for the individual children, the suitability of proposed accommodation from an educational and health and safety perspective and the proximity of existing autism-specific provision in the area. The Department's objective would be to complete all necessary inquiries so that if the application were to be approved, the new facility would be in a position to commence operation from the start of the next school year.

An official from the Department's technical section is arranging to examine the building proposed for the new facility in Goresbridge, County Kilkenny, this week. Pending a decision on the application, the Department has agreed to fund a structured home programme for the children concerned, subject to confirmation from the parents that the proposal is acceptable. I thank Deputy McGuinness for giving me the opportunity to clarify this matter.

Dr. Cowley

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this matter concerning two children in the same family. The eldest child in the family waited three years to be assessed for dyslexia by the Department of Education and Science. It was a matter of concern as he was 11 years old, with one year left in national school. He was finally assessed by the Department on 30 September 2003. As a result, he was promised resource teaching of 2.5 hours per week which he has yet to receive. His assessment profile meets the primary criteria for dyslexia but he only receives learning support for 15 to 20 minutes per day for two weeks every month. He receives none of the specialised resource teaching despite the Department's recommendation. This will put him at a disadvantage when he enters secondary school soon. Will the Minister of State confirm there are 4,000 children in the western half of the country waiting for services already recommended by the Department?

The second child, who is seven years of age, was noticed by the school to have reading problems in October 2003. The mother asked for an assessment for possible dyslexia on the grounds of his older brother's condition. The school informed the mother that his condition was not considered to be severe enough to warrant assessment by the Department. The school also pointed out that the child would have to be severely affected to qualify for assessment as only a certain number of children could be assessed. This figure, she learned, was based on the number of children attending the school and meant only 2%, or two children per year, could be assessed. This quota basis was confirmed to the mother by a departmental official for the Mayo area. If this is true, then any child falling outside the quota is simply forgotten.

The mother was also informed that other children were worse-off and needed to be assessed. In the younger child's class alone, there were seven children requiring assessment. The mother is involved in the dyslexia workshop in Ballina. She informed me this evening that she has had to organise a private assessment for her younger son. Though the school has been helpful, the mother feels hard done by. The school has been put into a difficult situation acting as judge and jury in these cases. Parents who persist in demands for assessments feel they are hassling the school. This inequitable process needs to be changed urgently. It is leading to educational apartheid where, as the boys' mother believes, those with money can avail of private assessments and those without cannot do so.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I thank Deputy Cowley for raising this matter which is of grave concern to him. I am as anxious as the Deputy to ensure there is true equality of access to psychological assessments and remedial intervention for all children with learning difficulties. The National Educational Psychological Service has made considerable investments in the provision of additional resources for children with special educational needs. The programme of the last Government contained a commitment to developing psychological services for children and young people. A planning group established to review provision in this area reported in mid-September 1998. The central recommendation in the report was the establishment of a NEPS agency under the aegis of the Department of Education and Science with a dedicated role in the development and provision of an educational psychological service and with a new organisational structure.

Following a Government decision that approved the findings of the planning group, the NEPS agency came into being on 1 September 1999. On that date 43 Department psychologists began working in NEPS. NEPS has delegated authority to develop and provide an educational psychological service to all students who need it in primary and post-primary schools and in certain other centres supported by the Department. The target staffing level recommended by the planning group is 200 psychologists. Notwithstanding the time-consuming aspects of recruiting professional staff, the Department has appointed a substantial number of additional psychologists since 1999 for assignment to NEPS. The total number of psychologists serving in NEPS is 127, including one on assignment to other duties in the Department of Education and Science. Four other psychologists are on career break at present, bringing the total to 131. The Department intends to continue to recruit additional psychologists to make up the shortfall as resources permit and bearing in mind the general staffing constraints at present.

NEPS is currently in a position to provide a psychological service to most second level schools and approximately 1,760 primary schools. In Mayo, NEPS provides a service to 81.78% of all schools, serving 88.28% of pupils. Eventually, when NEPS is at full strength, its psychologists will be able to provide a full educational psychological service to all primary and post-primary schools. However, it has not been possible to expand this service to all schools at once. It is of equal importance that the development of the new agency will be done in an equitable and orderly manner while ensuring that school children are not left without essential assessment services.

A draft detailed five-year expansion plan, including proposals, region by region, for the allocation of additional psychologists and for the location of NEPS offices, was approved in April 2000 by the NEPS national policy advisory board. It was inevitable that during the development period there would remain a backlog of assessment work. However, good progress has been made in general.

In the case of the child referred to by the Deputy, inquiries have been made with NEPS. The school in question, Scoil Naomh Feichin, Attymass, has been in receipt of a service from NEPS since 2000. The child's older sibling was first referred to NEPS on 19 September 2003 and was assessed by the assigned NEPS psychologist on 30 September 2003, following which a psychological report was issued to the school. This was an exceptionally speedy response. Prior to the assessment, the psychologist met the parents and gave them direct feedback in September 2003. The older sibling is currently in receipt of learning support provision and the psychologist has recommended an extension of this provision.

I understand that the teachers in the school do not consider the younger boy to be a priority for individual psychological assessment at this time. However, the fact that a child has not been assessed for dyslexia does not prevent access to the learning support service that is available to schools. The child in question is currently receiving learning support. However, it has been requested that the NEPS psychologist for the school consult the school principal and class teacher without delay and ensure that the matter is kept under review.

Learning support is the most appropriate intervention for children with specific learning disabilities. Learning support teachers have access to a variety of diagnostic tests that enable them to put an individual learning programme into place immediately. Under the current system of special education resourcing, the small number of children who fail to make progress with the learning support teacher may have access to additional resource teaching hours, provided they have been assessed by an educational psychologist as having a severe learning disability.

The Department of Education and Science is aware that there have been delays for some children in accessing such individual assessments. Recently, the Department announced a move to a weighted system for the allocation of special education resources. This means that each school will be sufficiently resourced to provide automatically for children with dyslexia. This will ensure a speedy and efficient response to such difficulties. Most importantly, it will ensure that all children with have equal access to the resources they need, regardless of their socio-economic circumstances. I thank the Deputy once again for raising this matter in the House.

Foster Care.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this matter. In Chapter 2 of her annual report for 2003, the Ombudsman states:

This complaint against the South Western Area Health Board in relation to a grandmother's entitlement to Foster Care Allowance highlights a difficulty which I understand faces many others in a similar position. I hope that by drawing attention to the matter the Oireachtas might consider alterations to the legislation.

This week the Minister announced that no such review would take place, which is a pity. The case in question is complicated and I have been dealing with it for more than two years. The person at the centre of the case had been dealing with the South Western Area Health Board for more than two years before that because of her circumstances.

This is not a unique case. This problem is faced by many people, especially grandparents, in Dublin, Cork and other areas, whose relatives have succumbed to drug or alcohol addiction and are not capable of rearing their children. In many cases the children are taken into care by relatives who cannot bear to see children as young as six months old abandoned. No human being could allow this to happen. In the case to which I refer, the mother did not notice for three days that the grandmother had taken her children away. This is the type of situation we are dealing with — the parent or parents are incapable of caring for their children at a certain time.

The problem in this case is that the children have not officially been put into the care of the health board so the relatives who have taken over the care of the children are not entitled to a fostering allowance. They must declare the children as orphans so they can receive the orphan's allowance, which is €97 per child, while the fostering allowance is nearly three times as much. The latter also allows carers to avail of grants to provide room for the additional family members who have been imposed upon them by their children's circumstances. It is no mean feat for grandparents to raise a second family starting from scratch. The Child Care Act 1991 allows for fostering by relatives.

I have written to the European Committee on Petitions to highlight this case because I do not believe the Ombudsman understood the circumstances fully. In this case a care worker had been assigned, which means the children were in the care of the health board. The health board disputes this, despite the existence of written proof, and we have not received a satisfactory answer.

This is just one case and there are many others in which people have not even been able to receive orphan's allowance. Some people received two allowances and lost out when the provisions in this area were changed recently. A review of the fostering allowance and orphan's allowance would be appropriate so that we can start to deal with these problems effectively.

The extra money these grandparents would receive through the fostering allowance would help ensure their quality of life. The family is living in a two-bedroom house with teenage sons and the husband has serious back problems. Two extra children must now live in the house. This is not abnormal. The poverty faced by grandparents in working class areas in Dublin, Cork and probably Limerick, although I have not dealt with cases in that area, is disgraceful. They should have some support. If these grandparents abandoned the children to the health board, the health board would deal with the problem and ask them to take the children in, but no family is willing to abandon young children in this way.

The Minister should address the issue and carry out a review.

Mr. B. Lenihan

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta Ó Snodaigh as ucht deis a thabhairt dom an cheist seo a phlé ar Athló an Tí .

The Deputy is referring to the ombudsman's comments in her annual report in the context of an individual case brought to her attention. He also raised wider considerations. I would point out that the ombudsman did not find evidence that the health board in question had acted in an inappropriate or negligent way in this case by not placing the children in the care of their grandmother.

On the provision of the foster care allowance, health boards are required under the Child Care Act, 1991 to promote the welfare of children who are not receiving adequate care and protection. Where a child requires care or protection that he or she is unlikely to receive unless he or she is taken into care, the health board must take the child into its care and provide the most appropriate form of alternative care for that child. The foster care allowance can only be paid in respect of children who are taken into the care of the health board and placed in foster care or relative care in accordance with the Child Care Regulations, 1995.

In 1998, the Minister of State in the Department of Health and Children set up a working group on foster care. The task of the working group was to make recommendations on all aspects of foster care. The issue of relative care was dealt with in detail in the 2001 report of the working group entitled Foster Care — A Child Centred Partnership. The report sets out a number of basic principles that should guide placements with relatives. These are as follows: that the best interests of the child are paramount; that the child should be placed only in an appropriate, safe, healthy and stable environment; that the standard of care must be equivalent to that provided in a traditional foster care arrangement; that relative placements should only be made where a secure attachment exists or has the potential to develop between the child and the relative concerned; that a partnership approach should be used in developing skills and supports for relatives providing foster care and that placements should not be made as a means to provide income support.

The working group considered the possibility that some children are placed in the care of the health boards in order to provide income support for the family in relation to the child. The group was strongly of the view that such a practice would be highly inappropriate. Income support is a matter for the Department of Social and Family Affairs and those in need of such support should contact that Department. The working group stated that children should only be brought into the care of the health boards if they meet the criteria regarding the need for care and protection set out in the Child Care Act. In addition, the choice of placement of any child in the care system should be based on the child's best interests.

Under the current legislation, a health board must assess the needs of a child placed in care and the suitability of the prospective foster or relative carers and draw up a child care plan. The implementation of the child care plan places significant responsibilities and duties on foster carers, whether relatives or non-relatives. The foster care allowance is paid in recognition of these additional responsibilities and the additional costs of looking after foster children. The foster care allowance is currently paid in respect of approximately 4,000 children. This allowance was restructured in August 2001 in response to the recommendations of the working group I mentioned earlier.

The recommendations of this report were made on the basis of the views strongly expressed at consultation meetings held by the working group and the views expressed by the Irish Foster Care Association. In view of the consideration given by the working group on foster care to the issue of relative care, my Department has no current plans to review the Child Care Act, 1991 or the Child Care Regulations, 1995.

Payment of the orphans allowance or pension is a matter for the Department of Social and Family Affairs. These payments are made directly by the Department of Social and Family Affairs, normally to the child's guardian. The circumstances in which these payments are made and the level of payment are determined by that Department.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.05 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 19 May 2004.