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

Legal advice provided in my briefing note indicates that partial implementation of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act could give rise to legal difficulties, for example, if the provisions were to be confined to an age cohort or broken up and phased in. I can make the conclusions, rather than the detailed legal advice, available to Deputy O'Brien.

The Deputy is correct that the cost of implementing the Act would be difficult to estimate or quantify. Given that we are struggling to meet current commitments, I would not like to give him or members of the public the impression that the Government will roll out the rest of the Act any time soon, as we do not propose to do so.

See this speech in context