Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very good at saying it is someone else's fault or that it falls within someone else's remit. He should know, as Minister for Children and Youth Affairs with responsibility for early childhood care and education, how many children under the age of five have special educational needs. The announcement by the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy O'Sullivan, on the increase in the number of special needs assistants for primary school is welcome, but what is the Minister doing for children in early education? He is doing nothing. He has established another interdepartmental group which will report at some time in the future. He put forward an amendment to our committee a number of weeks ago which confirmed that between the Departments of Health, Education and Skills and Children and Youth Affairs, no one wanted to be the lead agency to pursue policy to ensure children with special needs would get additional supports.

After four and a half years in office, there should be a national policy to support children with additional needs in the early needs sector, but there is not. At best, it is disjointed and inconsistent and at worst there are no supports in certain areas. Only yesterday I received a phone call from a constituent whose child was refused entry to a preschool. If the preschool were to take the child, the parents would have to pay out of their own pockets for the special needs assistant. Not only that, they were being asked to pay for the increase in public liability insurance as well, which is scandalous.

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