Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach and I have previously discussed the unintended consequences of the programme for Government commitment in regard to the children's disability network teams.

Full-time therapies have been taken out of some special schools, to be accessed instead through community HSE services. This policy has had negative outcomes for children and I know the Taoiseach shares some of my concern in that regard.

I want to raise again the outstanding issues at Carmona School in Glenageary. I thank the Taoiseach for pursuing the matters raised and for his correspondence to me last month. I need to inform him that the information provided to his officials in terms of resources being returned to the school are simply not correct. A speech and language therapist is on site just one day a week, primarily for the purpose of evaluations. The reality for the children is they have had no speech and language therapy since February of this year. The occupational therapist is only on site two or three days each week. The physiotherapist is not trained for emergency chest compressions, nor are the two nurses on site, as referred to in the Taoiseach's response to me.

The parents have repeatedly stated to the HSE and the Minister of State that their failure to reinstate this necessary on-site resource constitutes a real, foreseeable and life-threatening risk to children attending the school who are non-verbal and disabled. Perhaps most alarmingly of all, the parents have been able to ascertain through freedom of information, FOI, that no risk assessment was carried out by the Department or the HSE in advance of implementing the progressing disability services programme in special schools. I urge the Taoiseach to have his officials re-engage with the HSE on these issues as a matter of urgency.

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