Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Rabbitte said we are talking about implementation groups and reports. I am not talking about these but about policies that are being implemented which provide that one in every five primary school teachers deals with special needs and autism and 8,000 special needs assistants are employed every day in schools. We have taken on 400 staff this year and trebled the staffing resources. We are doing this to help staff in the field. We provided 400 staff to help the psychiatrists and trebled the number of consultant psychiatrists, not so much because it was a good idea but because it was necessary. These are not matters we are merely talking about. Deputy Rabbitte has just heard about this issue in the past few days and knows nothing about the subject.

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