Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I do not want to remove the word "services". I merely want to add in the phrase relating to resources. I referred to section 12. I should have referred to section 13. Other speakers followed suit and also wrongly referred to section 12. I believe it was section 12 in the Bill published last year, but the section relating to resources in the Bill before us is section 13.

I accept part of what the Minister says regarding section 13 being the main section where resources are involved, but in section 4, the section under consideration, we have an opportunity to assess the resources required for each child. That is important because section 13 is very general regarding resources. It involves the overall resources required which the Minister for Education and Science, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Health and Children will determine. That will be a big sum. If one can break that down into the units of money required for each child, one has a much better chance of attracting the resources necessary to address the needs of individual children who have educational learning needs. That is why we should insert the actual resources when we are doing the assessment of need. If one merely puts them in under an overall figure in section 13, inevitably there will be an assessment of what the public purse can afford, and people will then have to make do down the line with whatever their share of that amount is.

The resources should be included in this section. That will provide the opportunity for what is required to be listed and included in each child's assessment of need. I note the point the Minister made in terms of time frames, but if one already accepts that children might need two hours resource teaching weekly, or more likely two hours daily — with the need perhaps for a speech therapist, a wheelchair ramp or whatever, there being different needs for different children — it should not be too difficult to apply some kind of quantity in that area. We know what teaching hours cost and what ramps cost. We know the hourly cost of a speech therapist's time. I do not accept the Minister's assertion that the time frame would be extended.

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