Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I must pop out briefly so I will answer first, if that is okay. We have spoken a good bit about NEPS today. It has published a well-being resource, a toolkit and a webinar. We have 120 NEPS psychologists, who are obviously of assistance because the well-being of children, particularly those with special needs, is important. It is mostly targeted at those kinds of children.

The Senator mentioned the NCSE, which can directly recruit therapists now. Because we had an unprecedented pandemic, it was obviously the case that some HSE therapists were used for contact tracing and other issues. That, however, has since been resolved so at least the NCSE is in a position to recruit those therapists directly in order that they can assist with the inclusion model, and in general terms, with children with special needs.