Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

The difficulty I am trying to raise is set out towards the end of the Minister of State's reply. The nub of the question is the absence of communication or connections between the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Health on transport services for children with disabilities where the resourced school is not in the area where the services have been provided to the particular child since birth. That is the key problem. The Minister of State has acknowledged that there is no communication between the two. To be fair to these students and their families, communication is needed between the Departments and the scheme must be amended to take into account the medical and support service needs of children with disabilities where they have established a relationship with those services and with the individuals providing those services in their own county. It is nonsense to have them attend school in Waterford city and have them brought back regularly from school to Tipperary to attend psychology services, speech and language, paediatric services and physiotherapy services. All these services are available in south Tipperary in special schools that provide an excellent service. It is time the Departments of Education and Skills and Health got together to ensure the scheme was amended to allow for the small number of cases we are talking about. These are cases that are highly traumatic for the children and traumatic and pressurising for families. I appeal to the Minister of State to get the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Health to knock heads together to amend the scheme to make it available to the parents and students I have outlined.

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