I have been contacted by three sets of parents over the last number of weeks. They include John and Marie whose 12 year old child has autism on the moderate to serious autistic spectrum, and has other complex needs, Claire, whose ten year-old child has Down syndrome, profound speech delay and other complex needs, and Melanie whose nine year old child is on the moderate to serious autistic spectrum and has other complex needs. All three children attend St. John of God Special School in Islandbridge in Dublin 8. This school has two classes of six. That is 12 children in total, who are mainly on the autistic spectrum, and are not very mild or mild but are affected profoundly. Three out of the 12 parents have independently come forward. A quarter of the parents at the school have actively approached me with serious issues about accessing service in the school.

The school is funded by the Department of Education and Skills and run by the St. John of God organisation, in the same grounds as the Menni services building, which is funded by the HSE. Menni services can provide multidisciplinary services to children who have complex needs. One can literally walk from one building to the other. It is a long walk for these children because they are instead met with serious problems accessing speech therapy. They have problems accessing the swimming pool, and the Taoiseach knows that the pool is for more than just swimming for autistic children. There was no July provision last year and no July provision this year because the application has not been made for the school to get the July provision. There is no health nurse, no occupational therapy or physiotherapy, no access to multidisciplinary teams and the head principal has been out of school with a long-term illness. The deputy principal has also been in and out of school with illness and is retiring this year. As a direct result, there is no effective management of the school.

The parents have sought to resolve their issues despite all these serious problems. In May last year, they wrote to the Minister for Education and Skills and the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, and they have written to the Minister of State with responsibility for children and disabilities, Deputy Finian McGrath. People are well aware of the problems. I submitted a question two weeks ago asking the Minister of State if he had been contacted by these parents and what was going to happen. They have been getting the bog-standard reply from private secretaries and HSE people. The principal, board of management of the school and chair of the board have also been contacted.

I ask the Taoiseach to intervene directly. It looks like parents have been sent from Billy to Jack. The Departments are not talking to each other and in the meantime parents and children cannot access the services outside school because the children are in the school where those services should be provided. I ask the Taoiseach to intervene in this, or to get someone directly under his charge to intervene and pull the Departments with responsibility for education, children and disabilities, and the Menni services and the school board together to resolve these issues. This has been going on for a long time in this school and it needs to be resolved very quickly.

The Minister for Education and Skills has set out as his priority the delivery of the best education in Europe inside ten years. A key part of that is becoming the best at supporting children with special educational needs.

The Government is committed to ensuring that all children with special educational needs, including those with autism, are given the best opportunity to fulfil their potential. Everybody would agree with that.

The overall budget for special educational needs supports has increased from €1.28 billion in 2011 to more than €1.6 billion now, with special educational needs accounting for approximately one fifth of the overall education budget and correspondingly improved outcomes for students. I am surprised by the issues the Deputy has raised. I know that, for example, the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, has been to St. John of God's on a number of occasions and meets those parents regularly.

No, he does not.

The outline the Deputy has given is not in accordance with what one would expect from the very best standards here. The number of special classes has doubled from 548 in 2011 to 1,153 across the country now, of which 889 are special autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, classes. The number of special classes at post-primary level has doubled in the past three years and continues to rise rapidly. All of these are paid for by the taxpayer and are all in accordance with the best standards.

As the Deputy knows, early intervention classes are also available to support pupils who have ASD. The Department of Education and Skills invests over €300 million in providing additional resources specifically to support students who have autism in schools, enabling 63% of them to attend mainstream schools, 23% to attend particular classes in mainstream primary and post-primary schools, and about 14% to attend special schools.

The July provision scheme is available to support pupils with an extended school year to include the month of July. Approximately 14,000 students are diagnosed with autism, which indicates a national ASD prevalence rate of about 1.5% or one in every 65 students. Therefore a great deal of effort is being made. I will take to heart what the Deputy has said in respect of the issues she raised concerning St. John of God, including the proximity of the two buildings. However, the Deputy has made a clear statement that there are practically no services being provided at all here for these children. Let us verify whether that is the case because we are spending €1.6 billion a year on children with special particular circumstances, including specifically those with autism. I will take what the Deputy has said in the best spirit in respect of the three children she mentioned. Let us just see, however, if the facts she has outlined correspond with the reality of what we find on the ground.

It is frustrating when three parents come to me individually, not organised, and tell me that they cannot access speech therapy, physiotherapy or multidisciplinary teams. They are in a school that is supposed to provide these services. The HSE admitted that during the moratorium it lost staff in the multidisciplinary team and has a limited service to offer these children and because they are in the school they cannot get a multidisciplinary team anywhere else.

I will quote what John, one of the parents of those children, said:

If we had to describe the crisis as a short-story in a short film, it would be similar to that described below. We parents of autistic children would be invited to a magic show to be held in St. John of God, Islandbridge. The performers and magicians would be the Departments of Health and of Education and Skills. Their assistants would be the many services in St. John of God. These magicians promised us parents that we were in for a treat and would have something wonderful. The show starts and the magician shows us around the establishment whilst pointing out that our children will get the best services. Like any magician, in order to convince us, he actually shows the staff of a multi-disciplinary team. As parents we cannot believe that these special people are real.

John goes on to say that at the end of the day they have been duped because they cannot access those services. The Taoiseach needs to intervene in this matter. What I am saying is true and I want a response. The Taoiseach should pull those Departments together and deal with the issue.

As I said, we are spending €1.6 billion at the moment and the number of classes has doubled to almost 900.

That is not helping to fix the problem.

The Deputy should be clear on this point. The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, has set out the figures. The number of resource teachers has gone up by 41% from 5,200 to 7,500. Since 2011, the number of special needs assistants has increased by over 22% from 10,500 to 13,115. Since the previous Fine Gael-led Government took office in 2011, and despite an adverse economic climate, the sanctioned National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, staffing numbers have been maintained at the same level. NEPS now provides a service to an additional 20,000 pupils compared to 2011. We are committed to the programme for Government's commitment to deliver an additional 65 NEPS psychologists over the lifetime of the Government. We are also committed to recruiting a total of 21 educational psychologists by September 2017.

The Deputy has cited particular circumstances from parents who have approached her and others. Let me assure the Deputy, however, that the Minister for Education and Skills has secured exceptional resources from the Government and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. It is the deployment of those resources that the Deputy is raising. We will query the Deputy's points with the school involved.

I know that the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, has been to that school on a number of occasions and has met with the parents. He will be down there again before too long. However, the Deputy has raised specific issues and I will see that they are followed through on.