Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy will appreciate that I only recently published my action priorities. As I said, one of those priorities is to conduct a review of the EPSEN Act in its entirety. The premise of the review is that in the 16 years since the enactment of the Act, we have moved substantially away from the diagnosis-led model to a needs-based model. One of the reasons that some provisions of the Act were not commenced was a cost consideration. The NCSE and the Department estimated that, over a period of years, it would have cost some €235 million per annum to implement and commence all Parts of the Act that have not yet been commenced. My review will involve an assessment of the areas where special education needs policy has evolved since the introduction of the Act and a consideration of how best to progress aspects of the Act on a non-statutory basis. I will also be looking at new challenges in the area of special educational needs that have arisen since 2004.

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