Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I concur with Deputy Ó Caoláin. The committee is hugely important and I am excited about the fact that it is actually going to report in a couple of months, because usually when committees are set up they go off into a black hole and we do not hear from them for two years. It is great that we are going to get results from that committee by the summer, and I look forward to it. We will do whatever we can to assist the Minister.

The ECCE is magic and it is really working, but the take-up is only 95%. I think we can agree that the 5%, apart from maybe one or two instances, consists of children who have disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities. I know the Department cannot provide the supports - it has to come from the HSE - and I know there is no consistency in the provision of support through the HSE for children to access the ECCE scheme. I wrote to the Minister for Health last week asking him if he would consider supporting children with intellectual disabilities in accessing the ECCE year if they currently do not, and to instruct individual county HSE boards that have disability budgets. We do that in Meath and have done so for eight years. No one took a stick to our legs to make us do it. They did it in Meath because it is the right thing to do, and I would guarantee that, if one looked at the statistics, one would see that we do not have the same gap in services that other counties have. I ask the Minister specifically if he would support the request that the Minister for Health do that. If he does so, could he write to him and add his Department's weight to that proposition? Thank you.