Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to comment on what Ms Corbett said. If I heard her right she said there was a sea-change in recent years. In the Children's Rights Alliance report, this Government inherited a B on this specific area of child care and it has gone down to a D plus in the last survey, which is a damning indictment on what has happened under it. The witness is critical of certain aspects of what we did also and we had a lower rating. All Governments will get praise and criticisms from the Children's Rights Alliance and that is accepted, but I think there has been a massive change for the negative in this area and it has shown up in all the surveys.

I am a father. Mine and Ann's third child is going through the free year and he is about to finish up. We have had a very good impression of the year for various reasons. We have been through two different providers, both very good. We have had nothing but a positive experience with it. The children have got a fantastic education out of it. I speak politically when I say I am very proud it was Brian Lenihan who brought that in. He was Minister for Finance but he had the background as Minister for Children beforehand. As mentioned, there are difficulties with it. We have put the second free year onto the agenda and it is in our policy to suggest it be brought in during year three of the next Government. That may give time to address some of the issues raised.

I wish to raise the issue of special education needs. I live on the Louth-Meath border. As the crow flies I am only 100 m from the Louth border but the two facilities we have used are both in County Meath. There is a special needs assistants service in County Meath provided by the HSE, and I could not tell you what is available down the road in County Louth. We have had the Department of Health and Children, we have the Department of Education in this area and we have Pobal, but it came as complete shock to me that the HSE was providing these special needs assistants. Our child was in a class with a Down syndrome child and as a parent - while I cannot comment on the child himself, he is not my child - it was a hugely positive experience for the whole class to be in that setting and for integrated education to take place at that level. It seemed to work well from the staff point of view apart from all the ordinary pressures of being involved in such a service. This model has been criticised by our expert colleagues here, but it is certainly something that the parents in Meath value enormously, and they would like to have more of it. The problem is that the funding in County Meath - I do not know about other counties - is provided on a year-to-year basis. This year they were told that the funding was being completely eliminated. We had to put up a massive fight to get the money back. The HSE told parents that it would give the money but that it would now have to take away a home-care package for a dying child. That is what the parents were told, so imagine the stress; it is outrageous. That is now par for the course with the HSE in recent months because Mr. John Duggan and the Soliris------