Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am certainly not in favour of the removal of speech and language therapy services from schools for the deaf on the Navan Road, in Cork or anywhere else. I suspect this is part of the progressing disability strategy, which is nearly ten years old now and which had a different approach to providing speech and language services to children with special needs. My view is that we should move in the opposite direction and provide in-house and in-school multidisciplinary services for children with special needs. In education that initiative was taken on a pilot basis a year or two ago. In my view, that should be expanded because making services available to children in school in a co-ordinated, multidisciplinary way is the most effective way to support the development of the child. I passionately believe in that. I will follow up the matter.

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