Before the last general election the Tánaiste made a significant commitment in regard to people, particularly young children, with disabilities and special needs. There is an unacceptable situation facing children in terms of the provision of special needs supports in our schools. The deadline for applications for special needs assistants is tomorrow, 20 September, whereas last year it was 15 October. By definition, therefore, the Government is putting far more pressure on schools, parents and children in this regard. We have 71,000 children starting school this month, 10,000 more than last year. The shortening of the deadline is a back-door way of implementing unacceptable cuts. We are witnessing a constant limiting and restriction of support.

I wish to raise a case which illustrates this very seriously. I do not normally like to raise individual cases, but I have the permission of the parents of Kate Crowley, who is aged five and from Cork, to do so. She is a child who was presented at birth with an extraordinary set of challenges. She has had five surgeries and has multiple issues in terms of special needs. She is wheelchair-bound, has spinal rods, severe respiratory conditions and hearing problems, to mention but a few. She has come through her life thus far with a remarkable fighting spirit. She is intellectually very bright and has tremendous support from her parents.

Kate was refused a dedicated special needs assistant and was ultimately told she could have access, with five other children, to the services of one assistant. From my experience in education and health down through the years, this struck me as a case obviously in need of address. I raise it because it illustrates that there is something fundamentally wrong with the system when a child like Kate Crowley is refused a special needs assistant. In my humble opinion it is very obvious that she should have one. She has not yet started school this September despite the multiplicity of conditions she has.

Why is it that the system now seems to be restricting access to education and making parents fight and struggle all along the way? Kate's parents have been through the mill and are happy to be supporting their child, but they should not have been put through this particular struggle. There is a need for advocacy at the centre of the system, but it is missing. This case illustrates the problem more than anything I have come across in recent years.

Hear, hear.

I am not familiar with the details of Kate Crowley's situation, as referred to by the Deputy. The Minister for Education and Skills has likewise indicated that he is not aware of it. I assure the Deputy, however, that the Minister will examine the case, find out what has happened and respond to the Deputy very quickly indeed. It is fair to say that where somebody has a need, that need should be addressed.

On the general issue of special needs provision in our schools, despite the very challenging financial circumstances the country has faced, this Government has protected the budget for special education of €1.3 billion. Government policy has focused on ensuring that all children have access to an education that is appropriate to their needs, preferably in mainstream schools. A child-centred approach to the education of all children with special educational needs is promoted to ensure a continuum of special needs provision. We have protected the number of resource teachers and special needs assistants in schools. There are currently 10,575 special needs assistants in the system and 5,265 resource teachers.

The National Council for Special Education has announced the opening of 118 new special classes this month which will cater for up to 700 pupils at both primary and post-primary level. This is in addition to the 242 special classes already created during the lifetime of this Government, which represents a 50% increase in the availability of such classes since 2011. There are now more than 700 special classes catering for 5,000 pupils. More than 1,100 teachers are being provided in special schools to look after pupils with various disabilities at a much reduced pupil-teacher ratio, PTR. For example, the autism PTR is 6:1 and the moderate general learning disability PTR is 8:1.

In overall terms, 15% of the total education budget is spent on special education. That is as it should be. We all recognise that the special educational needs of children must and should be met.

I am surprised the Minister for Education and Skills is not aware of the case to which I referred, given that I wrote to him about it some weeks ago, as did others. Perhaps he will check that correspondence. The situation is very well known in the Department and in the National Council for Special Education. Rather than go public on this issue initially, I wrote about it. I just could not believe it was happening despite all the official rhetoric.

That rhetoric is part of the problem. I have listened to what the Tánaiste said, but when one talks to parents, teachers and school principals one hears a different story. A few nights ago in Cork a young resource teacher called me into her kitchen at 8.45 p.m. to tell me about the work she is doing and how low she is in spirit as a consequence of the cuts being imposed in resource teaching in her school in the past year or so.

Does the Deputy have a question?

The message we are getting from parents, teachers and children is very different from what we are being told officially. There is a problem here. The case of Kate Crowley illustrates more than anything else that the system, at its core, lacks advocacy for the child. It should be about the facilitation of children's constitutional right to an education. That should be the driving spirit behind how people within the system work, whereas what we are now getting is a shortening of deadlines.

The Deputy is way over time.

Will the Minister for Education and Skills agree to extend the deadline? Ms Sheila Nunan of the INTO has warned it will have a major impact.

Will the Government exceed the resource teacher cap, for example, if new needs emerge in the autumn? The problem with the deadline is that, with new children starting, needs can emerge through diagnosis and monitoring by teachers in a school. Will the cap be exceeded, if necessary?

We are dealing with two matters. The Government has protected provision for special needs education and I have outlined the details, including additional special classes and the measures taken to protect special needs assistants and resource teachers. The question arises as to why we find individual cases or a particular problem in an individual school-----

There are lots of individual cases.

-----where a child clearly needs provision and ask why the matter is not being addressed. The Minister for Education and Skills is doing a number of things to square these two points. He has appointed Mr. Eamon Stack to carry out an assessment of the allocation model to discover why the protection of resources does not appear, in some cases, to be translated on the ground. The Minister will have an interim report from Mr. Stack at the beginning of October.

Deputy Micheál Martin raised the issue of the requirement for earlier application for special needs assistants and resource teachers. That is precisely to enable the difference between the making of the general allocation which has been protected and what is happening on the ground in individual schools to be shortened in order that the matter can be addressed quickly and resources can be deployed to where they are needed.

What happens if something emerges after the deadline?