Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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My concern is that more than €5 billion is going into the sector, admittedly across a whole range of spectrums. For intellectual disabilities in particular, and in the Cork area specifically, it essentially came to a situation where those people in receipt of HSE funding were not able to accommodate children with special needs. The education and training board, ETB, stepped in and opened special schools there. In addition, there is resistance to providing respite care to those children who are no longer registered in section 39 organisations because they are now registered for schooling in the ETB. That is a classic example, from my perspective, of how an organisation that is being funded is taking its own direction rather than direction from the State. Governance is about internal processes but it is also about responding to the direct demand of the State.