Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Much of the Minister's answer deals with process. While she must address process, the critical issue is that many of the parents of children with special needs feel that they are being ignored, bypassed and not properly considered and included.

The Government recently published a spending review from the Department of Finance on disability and expenditure related to special education. Where is the empathy, understanding or the desperation to try to make things better for families of precious children with special needs?

When I came into the Department of Social Protection, there were major delays in getting monthly payments from the Department to parents of children with special needs. When the issue was re-examined with particular regard to children on the autism spectrum who, as the Minister is aware, constitute a significant proportion of children with special needs in schools, we had to consider the whole process, revamp it, redesign the forms, create an IT system and suspend applications for a couple of months. Since that process ended, I do not think any Member of the House has raised concerns about failures to give parents the payments to which they are entitled.

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