James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I have said on a number of occasions, there is no uniformity of support for special needs children across the country. This has been quantified and will be part of the work of the interdepartmental group. The Department of Education and Skills is working on this at the moment. Many children are in the ECCE programme but are not immediately identifiable as special-needs children from the point of view of the system; they are clearly identifiable by their parents, who can outline what their special needs are. The group will examine this and I believe we will get the result we need to be able to make the case very forcefully that additional investment is needed in the area. As the country's resources grow with the recovery of the economy, I would like to see this as a priority, as would many of my Government colleagues. However, we have to operate within budgetary constraints and the rules of our financial arrangements.

See this speech in context