Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)

Deputy McConalogue makes a good point on the transition point between early childhood services and primary school. That is something we need to manage. There is scope. I discussed this issue with the INTO when I met its representatives yesterday. They stated that in many instances, the preschool year is a considerable help because intervention is occurring at an earlier stage for children who need it, and those children are better prepared when they come attend primary school.

There is scope for shared speech and language therapists posts in a collaborative approach with a local service provider, whether it is with a school, as in the instance Deputy McConalogue suggests, or with a community initiative. There have been difficulties in recent years due to the lack of numbers of speech therapists but, in principle, the initiative Deputy McConalogue describes and the one we discussed are important. If Deputy McConalogue wishes to communicate directly on the case he mentioned, I will certainly follow it up.

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