Special needs cutbacks 'hitting poor the hardest'
Poorer areas are being harder hit by cost-saving closures of special needs classes, it was claimed today.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said dozens of schools had challenged Government plans to shut down classes for children with learning difficulties.
While some were allowed to keep their special classes, the majority of those refused were in less well-off parts of the country, he told the Dáil.
“They’re virtually all located in disadvantaged areas, parts of Tallaght, Ballyfermot, Edenmore, the list goes on,” he said.
Mr Gilmore urged Taoiseach Brian Cowen to reverse the planned closure of more than 100 special needs classes.
“The child of somebody who is well-off will have the money to hire the speech therapist, to hire the additional teachers, to get them the extra help, to get them the grinds, maybe if they’re well enough off to send them to a private school,” he said.
“These are children who will not get the educational leg up they need unless it’s provided through the state school system.
“These are children who are going to be left behind and they are going to be left behind, largely, because they are poor, because their parents are not in the position to provide the private tuition that better off parents will be able to pay for.”
Mr Gilmore said the closure would save less than €7m, which was a relatively small saving in the broad scheme of things.
In the long term, the state will have to shell out more to help those who were left behind, he added.
Mr Cowen insisted the special needs class closures were part of overall reform in special needs education provision.
The decision was part of a strategy to teach children with special needs in mainstream school classes, he said.
“The vast majority of parents generally speaking go along with that idea, that there is a wider social environment that develops their social skills by doing it that way,” he said.
Mr Cowen added that more than 11% of the total education budget – more than €1bn – was spent on special needs.
While there were only 300 special needs assistants in the country 10 years ago, there were now 10,000, he said.
