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

There will be statements tomorrow on the "RTÉ Investigates" programme and the issues raised in it. There will be 100 minutes provided for the debate tomorrow, in accordance with the wishes of the Business Committee and the House. Again, I say to the House in respect of Deputy Barry and others, and I am very clear on this, the role of government is to act as advocates for children. In my role as a Minister with responsibility for education and health my objective was always to prevent litigation and to provide the services, particularly in education. We made huge progress at the time. Relative to the time it was groundbreaking with regard to the mainstreaming of special education. We can see this in the numbers of special needs assistants and resource teachers. It was a big change in itself. My impulse, and as leader of the Government I can say the approach of the entire Government, is designed to provide services for children in education and health, to advocate for children and to do better because we can do better and we need to do better. Things are far from perfect and I do not like situations where families of children with special needs are constantly in a position of fighting for additional services. This is something we will continue to work on.

I take some issue with Deputy McDonald's dismissal of Deputy Lahart's genuine contribution that we just heard. Just because he is a Deputy on the Government side of the House it does not invalidate his objectivity on this question or his sincerity. Sometimes Deputy McDonald's party leaves the mask slip and loses any sense of its democratic impulse and endeavours to suppress other people in the House who have a legitimate perspective on these issues.

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