Ms Anne O'Connor:

There are a couple of things on assessment of needs. The reason we went down the road of the preliminary team assessments, PTA, was to try to do a shorter assessment. The challenge we have with assessment of need, AON, is we have different durations of assessment. For some children the assessment goes on for a very long time. Our resources get tied up in assessing and we cannot provide any intervention. It was an attempt to try to rectify that and to be able to provide intervention. The Deputy spoke of the challenge being about a child getting into school to get the necessary supports. We are very challenged in carrying out assessments that relate to children's education. In our discussions with the Minister, it is about trying to square that circle somewhat. We have our staff working in disability services assessing all the time, not providing sufficient intervention, which is actually the bit that matters to the families, and teeing them up for educational supports. We would argue our role in education needs to be looked at a bit and how we work with the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, system in providing those supports.

What we know from the PTA is that we focus on the child's needs. There is a big emphasis on diagnosis to be able to access supports, but the important bit is how we address the needs. They are slightly different.