Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I wanted to raise the similar issue of early years provision. I was saving it for my follow-up question. A family I am trying to do my best to support in my constituency faces a challenge with the Early Start programme, which is under the remit of the Department of Education. The family has a child with a diagnosis of ASD and they are being told there are no special needs assistants available under the Early Start programme. A child in the programme does not get a special needs assistant even if he or she has a diagnosis. That is not good enough. From where I stand, the collaboration the Minister spoke about does not seem to be working very well. There is a domino effect in that children are being bussed out of their own communities into others. The knock-on effect ultimately means that, because some areas are not providing or not being forced to provide the ASD classes they should be providing, other areas and children are suffering.

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