Rose Conway-Walsh on Therapist Transfers in Special Schools

Thank you Cahirleach and this is a question from Dhanaka actually for Minister Madigan and it's in relation to the special education advocacy groups and staff working in special schools and parents and they're all saying that the progressing disability model, particularly the deployment of therapists out of special schools is a bad idea and that it won't work and that it's unsuitable for children in special schools with complex needs and that children will lose out. What's my question to you is why is that going ahead? Well, first of all, to reply to Deputy O'Leary and to yourself, the rollout of the progressive disability strategy is a policy of the HSE, the Department of Health, so just to say that as the first instance, but obviously as Minister for Special Education, I'm following very closely due to the impact that it has on special education and indeed on special schools that you mentioned. And this transfer of therapy supports out of schools into the community has caused, as we know, significant concerns, as you mentioned, among schools and families, particularly when speech and language and occupation therapists have been redeployed by the HSE to priority for COVID-19 work. But I have met with representatives of schools and parents who have expressed these concerns to me. And while it doesn't come under my remit, I have written to the Minister of State and Minister Ann Rabbit about it to highlight these concerns and to ask that the rollout be reviewed as well. And it's been a particularly difficult year, as we know, for special education and families and staff who don't want any of the disruptions. OK, thanks. So I've just meant to wrap it to account for this. Thank you. OK, thank you, Minister. You might keep us posted on that or updated on that. Now, out of the 1,423 new hires that were to be made in the special needs education, how many of those have been hired as we speak? Sorry, Minister Madigan again. I don't know the exact number. Obviously, the budget provided for extra teachers, whether all of them have been employed or not, we can come back to you in relation to that. If you could, maybe if you could update the committee on it, I think that would be really useful on an ongoing basis so that we can see where the money is going. And just to, Minister Foley, we talked about transport earlier on. Does that mean that every child who needs it will get a seat on the bus this year, if you could just speak to that? And then around the allocation of the subhead A11, the grants to the education bodies working in primary and post-primary sectors, that's due to increase by 79% to 155 million. What are the reasons, therefore, the large increase for administration and the running costs of these education bodies? I'll just give the Minister time to answer. Minister Foley. Thank you very much, Deputy. Just in terms of the transport, obviously, as I've said, it is not without its difficulties and it's not without its issues. Hence, we are involved in the entire review of the transport system. As I have already outlined, it is my intention that there would be an interim report published prior to the return to school in September. It is our intention that as far as possible, obviously, children who are eligible will all receive, as has always been the case, those who are eligible, those who have paid on time, those who have met the criteria, that they are all provided with a place. But it is obviously necessary also to streamline the provision of the service that's there, because I recognise there are individual cases and you and your colleagues will have highlighted to me many of the individual cases where families or individuals will have fallen through the net, as it were, in terms of access to a place in terms of school transport. And it is for those very reasons that we are keen, to complete the report, which allows us to make provision for school transport as accessible and open to everybody as possible. Deputy board Speaker 2 Minister Foley