Minister: Summer arrangements for children with special educational needs 'not working' 

Disabilities minister Anne Rabbitte told the Oireachtas committee on autism that Ireland needs to look at a ‘Maltese model’, where children with special educational needs continue attending school for the entire summer. Picture: Julien Behal

The current arrangements in place for children with special educational needs during the school holidays are “not working”, according to the disabilities minister.

Anne Rabbitte told the Oireachtas committee on autism that Ireland needs to look at a ‘Maltese model’, where children with special educational needs continue attending school for the entire summer, and suggested using trainees in different therapies. 

"We have the ability, we have the capacity buildings to deliver it through," said Ms Rabbitte. 

"We need to now find a model of trying it. We cannot fail any further."

As the committee met on Tuesday, many members raised issues highlighted to them by parents regarding Summer Programmes, previously known as July Provision. Lack of access to such programmes is “setting children back” and makes it harder for them to return to school, Ms Rabbitte said.

It's not working. We need to have that continuity of intervention all the way around.” 

Many children with the most complex needs need to attend school-based programmes. The scheme is run on a voluntary basis and staffed by paid teachers and special needs assistants (SNAs). However, for a number of reasons, many special schools opt not to run the programmes. 

Ms Rabbitte said she would like to see the scheme staffed with student therapists, intellectual disability nurses, and teachers. 

“Without burning anybody out, we should widen the pool to have more people participate in it.” 

There are “really good success stories” in the delivery of school-based summer programmes and extra funding and steps were taken this year to support the scheme, she told the committee. However, some families are “lucky to get a week”, she later told Independent TD Marian Harkin.

“They might get two weeks and then they might hear of a fantastic provider where they might get four weeks and they're wondering ‘why we can't have the same.’

“Teachers are tired, SNAs are tired. That’s why we need to add more [potential staff members] to the mix. What we need to do is complement each other and talk about how we can all work together and put it into a summer programme.” 

Ms Rabbitte added that she wanted to work with higher education, as well as parents and teachers, to give “therapists the opportunity of the experience to work with children with disabilities”.

At times throughout the meeting, Ms Rabbitte was critical of the HSE, saying it was "soul-destroying" to hear the response it gave one family, raised by Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. 

Meanwhile, Adam Harris, the chief executive of autism charity AsIAm, told the committee that the charity has documented the experiences of 268 children who did not have an appropriate school place for September. 

"We believe this figure is just the tip of the iceberg," said Mr Harris.