Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Senator brought up a number of issues. He asked about supporting families and needing to get assessments of needs completed. Families feel there is no option because they are left waiting for so long. That is why I spoke about outsourcing. The assessment varies depending on the need as well. In some cases it could be €1,000 or €2,500, depending on the clinical need for intervention. Families sometimes do not realise that at the start of it. They might be told they will get X but you need to get that fully comprehensive piece. We are looking at all the procurement rules and I am having those conversations around it. That is why I talked about the €25,000. That will not get a lot done in any CHO. We need to get to the European standard of €250,000 and we need to make it very available so we can cater to the need and we are not limited. At this moment in time there are 10,000 PTAs that need to be given back to parents for that reassessment. There is a lot to get done while at the same time meeting other needs.

The answer to the Senator's question about funding is "Yes". That would mean that all children are within the system and that all children could get the proper interventions. Deputy Flaherty asked about where the children are, how we can best deliver services and if they can be delivered in the schools. It is about the mechanism for delivery.

I agree with the Senator about the idea of larger centres. There is a community school in my constituency in Portumna and we have 11 national schools around the place. It has fantastic playing pitches and everything else. Why would we not access it? However, there has to be that continuity at the same time. We need a link with the schools somewhere along the way. We do not need to have the teachers there for four weeks but if we had them or the SNAs coming in there would be a friendly face the children would recognise. We should create that pathway but at the same time maybe we should be bringing trainee therapists or trainee teachers into the schools a few weeks earlier and building that link as well. That is another way of looking at it. There are good success stories in the delivery of July provision. Only last week I visited the PALS early years centre, which is delivering full July provision. There we can see the benefit for the child, the family and the wider community. When a system works well it can work really well. We are missing that in a lot of communities at this moment in time.

I started working on the Malta question about two years ago when I came into office. I took two people over from Trinity College Dublin. They were looking for something to do for the summer and I gave them work experience to go out and research which is the best place for this. They came back with Malta. I am still not in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth but I have managed to nudge my way in there and get the funding from the team in the Department. I will pass over to Mr. Brunell because he was doing the engagement last week. He will bring the committee up to date on where we are at.