Ms Lorraine Dempsey:

On the question of speech and language therapists attending schools, I am involved as a parent representative in the progressing disabilities subgroup within the HSE and the Department of Health under the value for money structure for disability services. Under the current model, services are delivered on the basis of a child's home address. However, a part of that model is the recommendation that services be delivered through schools, where appropriate, for children of school-going age. Speaking as a representative of parents, however, and setting my direct involvement with that framework aside, the resources needed to build this model are not available. Progressing disability services is based on the same principles as this proposed model, namely, equity of access. What it is not necessarily about is the delivery of services, as they are resource dependent. In an ideal world, the model that Mr. Goff has outlined - a speech and language therapist attending a school specifically - makes sense where it is a special school or there is a special class with a cluster of children who require such support. In the current climate, though, and without the ability to provide enough therapists to give that support, it will not happen.

As this is the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection, the matter is slightly outside members' remit, but people should not always view issues in silos. Where children with special educational needs are concerned, education and health are intrinsically linked in terms of support and planning. Government planning and policy must view them this way. One cannot be considered without the other. Although there may be good local models, without the resources to support that framework, the new models for disability, speech and language and occupational therapies - occupational therapy is the next most significant therapy provided into schools, along with psychology - will not provide for such local arrangements unless there are adequate speech and language therapist numbers, for example, on disability network teams. In the view of our parent representative organisation and Inclusion Ireland, which recently issued a report on speech and language therapy services, it is imperative that we adequately resource child disability services, particularly for those aged between five and 18 years where they and their teaching staff are wholly dependent on the inter-relationship. Without resources, one leg of the stool that is required to achieve successful outcomes will be missing.