Ms Elaine Jenkins:

No, unfortunately not.

The example I used that may have caught the Minister of State's attention, as well as that of Deputy Flaherty, is that of my own son. He started in an absolutely beautiful new, purpose-built special school in September but he was not seen by any therapist that year. The speech therapist from the HSE who came to the school talked to the teacher for 45 minutes about the six children in the class and then left. There was no plan put in place. Parents in Longford have been having conversations with the CDNT but we all have different needs. My son has sensory and speech needs while other parents have children with behavioural needs and so on but what we are getting is the same as every other CDNT. We are getting offered parents' online courses and are being told what we are not doing right. The most recent figures the parents group got are that there is only 0.5 out of 4.5 in speech therapy, 0.5 out of 4 in occupational therapy and 1 out of 2 in psychology. If memory serves me, there has been a shortfall in psychology for two years. As I said earlier, all of that is impacting how our children get on at school. If our children do not have a sensory programme in school and our teachers do not know how to put one in place - it is not their job to know - then there are issues. If our children have behavioural issues in school and our teachers are not trained in how to deal with them and we have no external behavioural specialist, then there are issues. The numbers are bad and the far-reaching consequences make them even worse.