Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, I accept that this is not a satisfactory situation. The programme for Government recognises that we should be able to deal with this at school level. The Minister was contacted by the Laois-Offaly group in respect of this. The programme for Government commits the Government to improving services and increasing supports for people with disabilities, particularly for early assessment and intervention for children with special needs. Yesterday the Government made a decision to increase the number of special needs assistants to 12,900 but these special needs assistants, while they do a brilliant job, generally impact on the physical needs of children in classes. We have never had an analysis of the outcome in terms of the quality and the impact of those interventions by those people. The vast majority of them do a first-class job. The Government also, as the Deputy is aware, has a proposition and has made a commitment to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio for junior and senior infants by providing smaller classes, which will give an opportunity for teachers to recognise that there may be particular challenges with young people in this regard.

The Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, is a dedicated and experienced person in dealing with disabilities and he now has responsibilities for disabilities as a Minister of State. In the past 18 months the roll out of the HSE's Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People programme has targeted investment of €14 million and the provision of 275 additional therapy staff to increase services for children with all disabilities, including children with autism. The key objective is to achieve better access and consistency of service delivery for children and young people with disabilities and to develop a clear path to services regardless of where they live in the country, where they go to school or the nature of the individual difficulties a child may have.

I point out also that in the programme for Government we have decided to deal with the question of the use of county boundaries for access to health and social services; that will be reviewed independently - as the Deputy is aware, these matters stop at the county boundary for some reason dating back to the past - to ensure that the most efficient and the most cost effective service is provided to those who need it. As announced by the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, and the Minister, Deputy Zappone, this morning, Wednesday, a new scheme to ensure access to early childhood care and education programmes for young children with disabilities is commencing this September and we will ensure that further development of this initiative follows through. An amount of €4 million has been allocated this year for additional speech and language therapists for this age cohort. It will not deal with the backlog that Deputy Martin pointed out but it is an important start in that regard. An education providing access earlier to children and adults to speech and language therapy makes a vital difference to their future opportunities in life. We want all those opportunities for them.

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