Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the programme for Government's commitments on education. The Government made big promises in the programme, which neither it nor its partners in Fianna Fáil have delivered on over the past four years. Diversity and choice for parents in the school system have not been delivered. Core funding and capitation grants for schools and funding in third level are simply not up to it and students, particularly those outside Dublin, are in effect being priced out of their entitlement to third level education.

I want specifically to raise the issue of special education and education for children with additional needs. I attended a meeting last night with a number of principals in my constituency. The community healthcare organisation area that we are in, CHO 4, has the longest waiting list in the country for assessment of needs. Beyond assessment of needs, which is the issue that generated the headlines, the system of therapies for children once they have had an assessment is entirely broken. The organisations that provide these therapies are doing their best. Some of these assessments are done privately but there is no continuity of care then. In Cork, a charity, Marian House, provides therapies but children are not getting the therapies that they need. This has a serious impact on the children and their families and I believe it has an impact on society as a whole. These children are failed when they only get speech and language therapy or occupational therapy every few years. School principals are not trained in that regard and they are forced to try to figure out this stuff as best they can. What is needed is an entire re-evaluation of the special education system in the State because the Department of Education and Skills is blaming the Department of Health, which says it is not its problem. The co-operation between the two is not good enough, particularly in respect of the Department of Health, but the Department of Education and Skills needs to do much more as well.

See this speech in context