ACE- Q and A with attending press

Alliance against Cutbacks in Education [A.C.E.]

"Stop the attacks on Children with Special Needs"

Press Statement 6 September 2011

At today's press conference Tomás O'Dúlaing, Principal of Griffeen Valley ET National School, Lucan, Co. Dublin said

"Last week saw the return of children with special needs to our primary and secondary schools. These vulnerable children were greeted on day 1 of their new school year with a devastating array of cutbacks that, collectively, constitute a hammer-blow to their potential development.

· 10% of their 1:1 resource-teaching hours hacked off;

· Their SNA support halved of eliminated, and,

· All of this in classrooms with a further increase in pupil-teacher ratio.

"Children with special needs have the Human Right to fulfil their potential in our education system. The shameful attacks on these vulnerable children engaged in by Fine Gael and Labour amount to a savaging of that basic human right. What kind of Ireland do we live in when those of our citizens that need to be most protected are casually dumped aside so that the gambling debts of a section of our super-rich can be waived and set aside?

"Meanwhile, our Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, bleats on disingenuously about children with special needs having access to support. 'Animal Farm' will never be dead while this kind of double-speak pollutes the political airwaves. With the 'Mr. Jones' of Fianna Fáil and the Greens having just vacated the farmhouse, the new rulers, "the pigs" now trot out the same line and attack our most vulnerable, having decried the same measures prior to taking over in the farmhouse of government.

"Their breath-taking hypocrisy is only matched by the casual brutality of their attacks.

"Meanwhile, in the other official Ireland, populated by the true supporters of austerity and fiscal responsibility, Nama-Ireland scours the globe looking for debts to pick up after the obnoxious splurge engaged in by many of our super-rich. Billions here, and further billions there -- there is no austerity to be applied in the other official Ireland.

"Nor so, however, with children with toileting needs, with autism or Asperger's, with emotional or behavioural difficulties, or indeed with multiple difficulties. Here, we are told, that a handful of millions must be saved to rescue our country from bankruptcy!!! We, parents of children with special needs, and teachers and Sna's working with these children, ask ourselves....do they lie to us or are they are they so surrounded by their own smugness and hypocrisy in Leinster House that they cannot see the madness of their own words ?

"At 4pm on September 14th, we intend to give our returning politicians a fitting welcome back to the farmhouse of power in Leinster House. We will march from The Central Bank on Dame Street and greet the returning cabal who would attack the most vulnerable in our society.

"Beidh fáilte roimh éinne ó na meáin cumarsáide ag an bpréas agallaimh, áit a thabharfaimid tuilleadh eolais faoin agóid is faoin mór-shiúil ar an 14ú Meán Fómhair. "

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• SNA
• education cuts
• teachers
• Irish labour Party
• Fine Gael
• Joan Laverty
• ACE
• Paula Geraghty