Richard Boyd Barrett: Supplementary Estimate & Special Needs

It's an enigma, is all I can say. It's like a Sherlock Holmes mystery trying to get to the bottom of what's happened with the additional allocation, or supplementary estimate. Because, and you maybe have explained this, and apologies I wasn't here earlier, I was at my other committee and also apologies. I think I hear you saying there was a structural deficit. And yet you're also saying that you didn't do bad budgeting. So there was a structural deficit which required additional funding in the supplementary estimate, but you didn't do bad budgeting. So why wasn't it in the budget? If we knew it was there, and you weren't doing bad budgeting. And also we get constant references to post-budgetary decisions. So something else happened, so for example, might the something else have been that the government thought they were going to make savings based on the circular around special needs. They were going to redeploy people, there were going to be efficiencies in terms of moving SNAs around. And when that went down like a lead balloon, with SNAs, school communities, and parents and children with special needs, suddenly the minister realised, well actually we're not going to get these savings that we thought we had, and we're going to need to allocate additional money, because the savings aren't available. I mean, is that what happened? Because I'm still really struggling to understand what happened. Thank you, I'll do my best. So we were saying back at budget time, so the budget that was being decided back in October for 26, that there was a structural deficit at that stage. In other words, that there was a gap between what we were forecasting we would need and what you were given. That left us with a gap. At the time, obviously DPIRT have responsibility in terms of ensuring that they can only allocate so much money in terms of what's available to them as well, they have to apportion it across departments in a way that's fair and reflective of government priorities, etc. So we didn't receive everything that we felt we needed to keep the existing level of service on track. So we would have, to do that within the money we had, we would have had to change tech in some way, change policy in some way. But obviously, and we've talked about this before with some of your committee colleagues, about the difficulty... Like, for example, reduce the number of SNAs? So, well, of course, and just to take that point, we weren't reducing the overall number of SNAs, but what we were doing was redeploying them where they were most needed. But obviously there was a government decision there to retain the SNAs where they are for the next school year, and that is part of one of the post-budget decisions that we're referring to here. So afterwards, DPIRT realised, well, we better give them the money they asked for in the first place. Is that what you mean? Well, I'm not saying it in that way. What I'm saying is that government made a call, you know, in light of some of the concerns that were raised at the time publicly, and some schools that were losing, that they would need to have, that they would leave those SNAs in place. But that meant that there would be additional monies required to meet the cost because they were staying there, so we couldn't redeploy them to another school where they might be needed. And yet there's a child in that other school that did need an SNA support. So that's part of it. It's not by any means the largest part of it, but it is a portion of it. There was also an emerging demand, more generally, in terms of special class provision. So in terms of special education, some of that is through the work that was done last year for having the portal open that parents could signal that the needs of their child would have a special class place. That was done at an earlier stage in the year, so we were, it helped in a sense from a planning point of view, and trying to better ensure that they had special class places, and Martina was talking earlier about the number of places that are opening up. So we knew at an earlier point that they would be needed, but obviously it does cost more in order to ensure that those places are provided. And again, you hadn't got as much as you needed for... No, but again, and part of this is about the budgetary cycle. So Tom was talking earlier about the fact that obviously we budget usually for the first week of October, we're trying to forecast what might be needed for the following September. So you're nearly a year away. So we still believe we can forecast well, but sometimes on things like that, there was a greater emerging need there. So in most cases, we can forecast well, but sometimes it would go... Did the sort of awareness of the government or deeper combination of both about both of these things sort of emerge in the aftermath of, let's call them the concerns and the protests and the crisis around special needs provision generally? Was it after this, that this new recognition dawned on deeper and... Well, I won't speak for them, but I suppose in terms of, we know what happened in terms of publicly what happened after that, that obviously the concerns were raised and government made the decision to leave the S&As in place in relation to... But also in terms of class provision, yeah. Well, that was something which that, and Martina can talk in more detail on this, but there was an emerging demand there. So that's not about a reaction to or a response to a public reaction, something that's about ensuring that there are spaces, there are places in special... But you knew about that class demand before though, did you? Not at budget time, not to the extent it had... Martina, do you want to say something? Thanks very much, David. So I suppose we've done a huge amount of work on the forward planning space in relation to special education. We started, I suppose, intensively in 2022. We went from about 300 special classes a year. There was 407 last year, we're at 565 today, the largest number ever. But one of the things that did emerge, and I know we would have spoken about this previously, but for example, places in Dublin, where three in every six children in a special class had not come forward to the NCSE. So they had a recommendation for a special class place, but they did not come forward to the NCSE looking for that class. They potentially waited until the class opened in their school. So we were trying to provide a level of service without knowing which children in which individual school, and the challenge in a scenario where you have 4,000 schools and every six places have to be worked through at an individual and local level. So in Dublin in particular, and I'm using that just as an example, we would see that when we opened a new special class, three of every six children had not come forward to the NCSE, and that was why we introduced the parent... Why did they not come forward? Just tell me. Well, I suppose in some instances the child... So we know for instance now of the children that have come forward for the 1st of October last year, 75% of those were already in the existing school. And what we see is that if a child may be, for example, in first class, unless the special class opens in the school they're in, the parents may not wish to move the child to a special class in the school down the road. They may wish to stay in the mainstream provision with supports and may not opt to move them unless the class was in their school. So part of the introduction of the parent notify process was to ensure that we would have a full understanding of the number of children who needed places. So the parent notify deadline was the 1st of October of this year. At that point the budgetary process was largely complete. We'd been working right up through the summer with our colleagues in Deeper. We got funding to support additional places at the point in time in the budget. As the emerging need came forward, to be fair to our colleagues in Power, we worked really closely with them. We identified that additional funding was to be provided and government did, as part of the 646 million, give that additional funding so that we can have the scale of additional special education places for September 26. So as I say, 565 special classes. This year we're going to have 600 additional special school places on top of all those that we have. We've had over 100% increase in special class places in recent years, 20 new special schools. So the government has been really responsive. Deeper have been really responsive in terms of special education. And we hope that this means that parents will see that there are now more special education places in every county in Ireland, primary and post-primary, than ever before. More places in local schools for children with special educational needs. And I suppose some of the challenges, Deputy, that we have seen last year, we as officials and people working directly with parents and advocacy groups, we never want to see parents in that situation. And we hope that this year, with the scale of provision we've made, that parents will see a big change on the ground in terms of provision for children with special educational needs. Will every child have a place? Well, that is absolutely our intention. We have sanctioned the places. Schools are now working through their admissions policies. We have the 120 CNOs on the ground working very closely with parents. The information back from the NCSE is that most of the classes have been sanctioned across the bulk of the counties. We will see some additional classes in places like Dublin, where we continue to work through on that need. The new inclusive classes, you'll be aware of them, Deputy, but they have been a game-changer in terms of 75% of the children already in schools. If you want to stay in the school, and the NCSE can work with you to get the teachers, the SNAs, the capitation, to allow you to stay in your own school. We have seen that significant additional provision. 56 of those 565 classes are new inclusive classes across primary and post-primary. We have seen that significant additional provision. 56 of those 565 classes are new inclusive classes across primary and post-primary. That's a yes, is it? That's the intention, Deputy. Thank you.