Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The original Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act was very ambitious in its objectives, as everybody recognised at the time, and when it was commissioned by the previous Government it was not all commissioned at the same time because of resources. My struggle at the moment, as the Deputy and other Deputies in the House are well aware, is trying to minimise the reductions I have to deliver to meet this country's overall budgetary targets while we remain under the supervision of the troika. However, leaving aside that broader view, there is also the internal operational difficulty of the co-operation between the HSE on the one hand and the education providers on the other, which has not been satisfactory and probably never has been satisfactory if truth be told. I can communicate with my colleague, the Minister for Health, on this matter but I know there are difficulties operationally on the ground in that we cannot force the HSE to deliver the speech therapy services in the special needs school to which she refers. All I can do is take details of it from the Deputy and see if we can get the delivery of those services, which is within the skills remit of the HSE and not the Department of Education and Skills, to the point where they are most effectively delivered.

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