Mr. Tiernan O'Neill:

We see how it works, particularly for children who get overwhelmed in clinical settings. When they are comfortable in their own settings, the outcomes for the child and for the practitioner who sees the gains the child is making are perfection at times. The therapist, the child, the parent and the teacher are all working in tandem to maximise life outcomes for the child. The regeneration programme in Limerick was also mentioned. There is an ongoing regeneration programme in Limerick as I alluded to already. Seven of the ten most disadvantaged electoral districts are in Limerick. You obviously have a lot of children with additional needs within those contexts. As part of the regeneration programme, €4 million per year went into social interventions. You see the tide turning and things moving in the right direction. I gave the example of the HAPPEE initiative where you have the trainee OTs and SLTs coming into schools under clinical supervision. Just when that tide is starting to turn the money is starting to disappear, so we are going back. Rather than looking to build communities, regeneration becomes all about building houses again. You take away the social element, which is the most important part of any regeneration programme. That social intervention fund is critical. It is a unique urban regeneration fund that enables us to jointly commission pieces of work with Departments using the funding as a lever to extract other funding.

For example, the funding we secured for the HAPPEE initiative, with the multidisciplinary support coming into the school, enabled us to access funding from other Government Departments. All of a sudden, when you see the work happening, it is deeply frustrating to see the funding suddenly just ebb away. It makes no sense whatsoever. In ten years' time, when potentially some of these communities implode and the children continue to struggle and suffer, it will be said that we need another regeneration programme and we will start pumping the money in again. There is just such myopic, short-term thinking.