MLAs in favour of motion regarding special school summer schemes

MLAs have backed calls for funding to ensure summer schemes for children with special educational needs will not be cancelled in future.

Members were recalled from their Easter break to discuss concerns around a decision to cancel summer schemes at special schools.

The schemes were scrapped by the Education Authority (EA) last week because of the lack of healthcare provision for children taking part.

Less than 24 hours later, the EA performed a U-turn after the Department of Health agreed to provide nursing support for each of the summer schemes.

The U-turn followed backlash from parents who expressed anger and disgust at the plan to cancel them.

Some 68 MLAs voted on the amendment, 40 voted with it, the rest against.

The Alliance Party tabled the recall petition, supported by Sinn Féin, the SDLP and TUV, to allow MLAs to question ministers about the decision.

The Alliance deputy leader Eoin Tennyson said the families affected have been put through a "disgraceful and entirely avoidable ordeal".

Speaking in the assembly, he said the decision to cancel and subsequent reversal had "caused widespread distress, anger and confusion".

A Sinn Féin amendment recognised the "lifeline" that summer schemes provide for many families and expressed "frustration at the unnecessary uncertainty and distress caused by the initial decision and the manner in which it unfolded".

Cathy Mason said this was "a crisis of the minister's own making", adding that there was "no urgency, no leadership, and no plan".

Families of children with special educational needs also attended the debate, which lasted just over two hours.

During the debate, the Education Minister Paul Givan was questioned about the initial decision and why families were subjected to unnecessary stress and anxiety.

The Department of Health also came under scrutiny over the U-turn and how it plans to staff the summer schemes.

The education minister said supporting children is a priority, but it requires the input of the whole executive, and "all departments must be willing to do so" and bring their resources to the table.

Givan added that there's a tendency to see it as an education issue alone and a reluctance to commit "more than warm words".

He said the EA needs the support and investment of others to provide this safely, adding that the cancellations were a result of health risks, and not funding.

"After intense and constructive engagement, the Minister for Health confirmed last Friday that nursing support will be provided at every summer scheme location," Givan said.

The SDLP Leader of the Opposition Matthew O'Toole said having to subject special educational needs families to this '"spectacle" is a "profound failure of our politics".

O'Toole described it as an "immense failure" from both the education and health ministers.

The cancellations and U-turn caused lots of "finger pointing and point scoring" according to the Ulster Unionist Party leader Jon Burrows.

"What happened last week should never have happened.

"We all owe a collective responsibility for that."

Even before the first words were uttered in the chamber the Speaker sensed things could turn ugly.

He urged members not to "take lumps out of each other", but clearly not everyone heeded that advice.

What followed was at times a bad tempered debate with feisty exchanges across the floor.

Passions were running high which was not surprising given who was watching from the public gallery.

Families of special needs children who despite the latest U-turn were determined to vent their anger at a system which has failed them.

Carrying photographs of their children they told how they feel abandoned and left isolated without much help or support.

It was a sobering message for the MLAs as they all agreed the families should have been spared the anxiety of last weeks U-turn.

But that is where the unity ended as Sinn Féin and Alliance led the attack against the DUP Education Minister Paul Givan.

Nothing was off limits.

Givan hit back refusing to take interventions from Sinn Féin members, accusing the party of being "shameless" in how it "exploited" children with special education needs for "party political advantage".

Some interventions were applauded by the families in the gallery while we also got two apologies from the education and health ministers.

But the real test will come in the allocation of funding not in the allocation of blame.

That is when the families will measure the real worth of what they heard from across the Assembly floor.

Speaking before the debate began, Colleen McConville said she was hoping the recall could provide answers.

Her two sons - Cian and Cillian - both use Lisanally Special School's summer scheme in Armagh.

"Services for our children are always cut, so yes we're grateful it's back on, but it shouldn't have been decided like that out of the blue," she says.

Colleen said there needs to be "long term solutions".

"It's alright to promise things and you're going to try your best or you have good intentions, [but] you need action."

Elena Eke's son David is autistic and has complex needs. She has two other children.

"For us, the summer scheme is such a vital service throughout the summer where he can have access through the school to loads of things which we are not able as a family to provide," she told BBC News NI.

Elena also questioned what the long-term future of the summer schemes would be.

"Politicians need to do better and our children matter," she said.

Caroline Devenney's son Harry was born with a rare syndrome and attends a special school in south Belfast.

She said everything in Harry's life has been a "fight" so far - from obtaining a school place to getting a SEN statement.

"The summer for us, I work, I have a mortgage to pay and there's very little support for children out there, for children like Harry," Caroline said.