Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 October 2020
23. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration the truancy rate for children with a disability at primary and post-primary level; the engagement by school attendance officers with schools and parents in such instances; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30623/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraEvery year, more than 700 families are threatened with prosecution because their son or daughter has failed to attend school with no legitimate reason, where these parents have declined support and are unwilling to co-operate with Tusla. While Tusla is preparing files for the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, to prosecute these particular parents, children such as those with autism are slipping through the system. A total of 91% of children on the autism spectrum who have had an extended absence from school receive absolutely no support from Tusla.
The Tusla education support service, TESS, operates under the Education (Welfare) Act 2000 and aims to promote attendance, participation and retention. Under section 22 of the Act, each school is obliged to have a statement of strategies to encourage regular attendance among all students. The school principal must ensure that the strategies outlined are followed, that parents are informed at the earliest possible point of the school’s concern regarding attendance and that the school follows the graded steps outlined in the strategy to address non-attendance. Where a school principal has a concern about a pupil’s attendance and where the school has made all local efforts to resolve the problem, a referral can be made to TESS and the school will be asked to document interventions made in line with the school attendance strategies. DEIS schools will also be asked to document additional interventions made by home-school community liaison officers and the school completion programme.
On the specific issue of disability, TESS has advised the Department that it does not record attendance rates for individual cohorts of students, including children with a disability, at primary or post-primary level. They are not, therefore, singled out within TESS's statistics. When it receives a referral, however, an educational welfare officer will engage with the parents of the child in question and identify any issues that may impede the child attending school. The officer will then put in place a plan to deal with these issues to ensure that the parents and the child can work towards establishing a more regular pattern of school attendance.
The provision of education for children with special needs is an ongoing priority of the Government. The numbers of special classes, special education teachers and special needs assistants, SNAs, are at unprecedented levels and my colleague the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Foley, has announced significant increases in the numbers. She will spend €2 billion, or 20% of her budget, on making additional provision for children with special educational needs, a significant investment.
Strategies are all fine, and it is true that principals will deal with children in some instances, but in others the principal will be damn glad to see the child gone out the door and will not be too worried about whether the child comes back. Sadly, all too often that relates to children on the autism spectrum. One parent was quoted as saying that a poor understanding of the child's behaviour is sometimes caused by the way in which the staff deal with his anxiety within the school. Tusla is not fulfilling its role to that cohort of children, that is, those who are on the autism spectrum, because it is a case of out of sight, out of mind. It is a damning indictment of Tusla that 91% of parents of children on extended absences from school stated they have had no engagement with Tusla, and the reason is this issue is not being measured. It is being ignored and brushed under the carpet.
I have experience with children with significant degrees of autism in my constituency having extended absences. One of the key aspects is providing wider levels of support to allow those children, in some cases, to integrate partially in school through an autism spectrum disorder, ASD, unit, more of which have been rolled out. For children who can engage at that level, they are a fantastic development.
There are other children, however, whose degree of autism is so profound that even in the context of that separated ASD unit, their needs are not met. My area recently established a new special school for children with autism, the first to have been founded in the country in 15 years. It is running very successfully, with 24 kids with profound autistic needs being educated together. It is about providing the relevant and necessary supports for the children who need them.
I am glad the Minister raised the issue of the wider level of support. Most parents of children on the autism spectrum would say that if they got the help when they needed it, it would have made a big difference.
I turn to my part of the country and the ASD unit for Galway and Roscommon. There are 1,048 children on the waiting list in those two counties alone who are seeking access to occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. That impacts not only each one of those children but also the 136,000 children alongside them in their classes while they wait for five years to access that service.
Does the Minister believe it is right that the occupational therapists and the speech and language therapists who are supposed to be dealing with those children have spent the past seven months doing contact tracing within the HSE? Will he use his offices to ensure that those staff are back on the front line and treating children instead of making phone calls?
My colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has been working very hard to address that issue of very significant backlogs for children who require these services, for both the initial diagnosis and subsequent access to the services. That is crucial and I welcome the work she has been doing in that area in conjunction with the Minister for Education and Skills. It is important that in this year's budget, we provided funding for an additional 235 special class teachers in 2021, which will provide education for 1,200 new special classes. The Government has recognised that there is a significant issue in the area and is putting in the investment in respect of it. As for the appropriateness of who is undertaking contact tracing, I fully take on board the Deputy's point.
