Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I assure the House that improving services for children of special needs across a range of areas has been, and continues to be, a major priority for the Government. We have worked hard to dramatically increase services in recent years. This year €820 million will be spent on special needs education, which is an increase of more than 30% on last year. A total of 8,000 special needs assistants are working in mainstream primary and second level schools compared to 300 on the day I became Taoiseach. More than 7,000 resource and learning school teachers are in place compared to approximately 2,000 five or six years ago.

Major progress has been made in the support of children with autism, which is the important issue raised by the Deputy. The Department of Education and Science's preferred approach to the provision of appropriate education for children with autism is through the primary and post-primary school network——

See this speech in context