Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Neither is fully staffed and neither is providing a wonderful service. That is not a reflection on the staff. It is a reflection on the whole system. Ms Moran talked about working in a special school. I was in a special school yesterday and the principal said that, some years ago, the board of management hired an occupational therapist to come to the school for three days a week. That OT worked with the children and the teachers and SNAs picked up some of the procedures and systems she used and were able to replicate them, which resulted in the therapist only needing to be employed two days a week rather than three. She was training the staff by showing them what was happening. When this model was introduced, I thought families were supposed to be able to choose to have services in the school or in the home. That did not transpire. In fact, special schools lost their therapists. No risk assessment was carried out. Parents were very concerned that no risk assessment had been carried out for children with very complex needs. We need to see the services going back into the schools. I believe there is disagreement between the Department of Education and the Department of disability on that. Under the school inclusion model piloted in CHO 7, therapists went into mainstream schools and worked with the staff. The NCSE has told me that, where that was done, the requirements of the CDNT reduced dramatically. We need to see a joined-up approach from the Department of Education and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth whereby clinicians and therapists work in the schools but also provide therapy in the community, where required.

However, at the moment it is disjointed. We have parents looking for assessments for children, not necessarily to get therapists but to get a school place. The pressure is coming from the schools as well. They say we do not have enough places for our children with additional needs so we need to determine who gets one and an assessment is needed. The assessment is then done. I acknowledge the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, said that parents can now get a private assessment and have it paid for but I am concerned. I do not think the capacity is in the private sector at the moment to actually address that. It might encourage more people to move from the public to the private sector. We still have unregulated psychologists. There a lot of problems with that as well.

Ms Moran has addressed a lot of issues here this evening. Where did the model actually come from? Are she aware of international models used by other countries that are doing something that could work here? Do it need to be more school-based? I am of the opinion that is the way to go. We are not doing away with teams in the community but they should be linked in much more strongly with the schools, especially with special schools, but also with mainstream schools, particularly if they have a unit or special class.