Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

Last night in the Dáil the Government voted against the appropriate education of children with autism. I am saddened by this outcome and I support the call for a debate on this. If the Minister for Education and Science is serious about the appropriate education of children with autism, she will conduct research into both the eclectic method of teaching, which she favours for financial reasons, and the ABA method, which changes children's lives. If I had a child with autism, I would have grave difficulty sending him or her to an autistic unit in a primary school where the pupil-teacher ratio is 6:1. The teachers cannot handle this and they say they need the ratio reduced to 4:1. In Claddagh national school in Galway city, 24 children with autism receive no speech therapy. They have severe communication difficulties and their families must pay €642 per day for private occupational therapy.