Ms Moira O'Mara:

Preschool services are covered by the Equal Status Act and are required to make a reasonable accommodation for children with special needs. As far as we are aware, they appear to be doing so. One of our greatest roles in terms of policing is where parents telephone us to complain about services. This is not one of the issues they raise with us. We are also actively working to support services to be more accessible, for instance, through capital funding of €1 million which is being provided this year for this purpose.

In terms of Health Service Executive supports, it is true that in recent years the level of special needs supports being provided to children attending preschool facilities has been reduced to approximately 15 hours per week. The ECCE programme allows children with special needs to avail of the scheme over two years rather than one, meaning the 15 hours would match the service provision. This is how the parents of many children with special needs like to avail of the programme.

The Department and the Department of Education and Skills are working actively with the Health Service Executive to try to standardise the approach to supporting children with special educational needs. A number of different models can work. Standardisation would result in available resources being utilised much more effectively and we are working actively on that front.