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

First, on Deputy Mac Lochlainn's point, I had a very worthwhile visit to Derry recently and met with the North West Regional Development Group. I think it is a very progressive group that leaves politics outside the door and its members do a lot of good work in terms of the economic and social development of the north west. We had a very good meeting in respect of commitments North and South and, in particular, how the shared island unit can be of assistance in the development of the region. We announced at that meeting a €5 million allocation to local authorities North and South to prepare feasibility studies and bring proof of concept to many projects that potentially could become a pipeline of projects.

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The specific issue of City of Derry Airport was raised by the group. I will engage further with the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, on the matter. We would be interested in working on it with the aviation authorities and airlines to get a service going. It would be a good idea to get a service going between Derry and Dublin because there is the issue of connectivity generally around the north west. The Minister has commissioned, and the shared island unit is funding, an all-island railway feasibility study. We are prepared to fund the A5 but it seems bogged down in planning issues. I take Deputy Mac Lochlainn's point about the connectivity issue, that if you can get a flight to Dublin, you can get flights across Europe and the world more generally. I would be anxious to work with all concerned to see if we can advance that. I am very struck by the cohesion within the north-west region. The group was chaired by the DUP, and all political parties were represented. The group has been working for quite a long time on economic and social issues, health, education and so forth. I had a very good visit to Altnagelvin Hospital. Previous governments have put €19 million into the cancer treatment centre in Altnagelvin. I saw the cardiac cath labs there, which are available to people in the north west, Donegal in particular. It just makes a lot of sense to try to support such groups, and the shared island unit stands ready to do that.

In respect of the issue Deputy Cian O'Callaghan raised about An Bord Pleanála, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage will examine that. There may be issues there that need to be examined further or clarified. I think it would be in everybody's interest if the situation were clarified. I will ask the Minister again about the issue Deputy O'Callaghan has raised.

In response to Deputy Barry, there was a meeting between the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, the principals of the schools and Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan a number of weeks ago. There has also been a meeting between the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and the principals of Cork schools, I understand, in recent days on this issue. I have long been of the view, even before I became Taoiseach, that progressing disability services should not dilute resources in special schools in respect of therapists. My understanding is that following a recent meeting between the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, the principals, or a representative of the principals, and the disability managers, work will now progress between the principals and the disability manager in respect of posts that were lost as a result of the application of the progressing disability services model as to what number of posts there were prior to the application of that model. My view is that they should be restored. I also intend to convene meetings with the HSE more generally and the Minister of State in respect of disability policy and the retention of therapists within special schools.

Progressing disability services was promoted a long time ago, many years ago, probably due to absences of resources. It has taken a long time to progress, but the model the HSE has put forward is the idea that there is a central assessment and treatment centre and that one provides as broad a range of services to the broadest range of people possible. One of the challenges with that is that, historically, special schools had multidisciplinary teams. They had therapists, teachers and so on. I have always been consistently of the view that progressing disability services should not dilute what the special schools had. There is a pilot project in primary schools, which was brought in over two or three years ago, for which I advocated strongly, whereby schools hire therapists within primary schools with a view to having that multidisciplinary team in situ. That is a model we should explore further. We need to stand back and reflect on these initiatives and these policies because the parents concerned are understandably angry about the loss of access to therapists, as are the schools. Equally, however, in respect of the provision of disability services more generally, we need to examine other issues with the delivery of services through the section 38 and section 39 bodies. There needs to be a broader examination of that.

My understanding is that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has now initiated a process with the schools in Cork and the disability manager in the HSE with a view to trying to rectify the situation in the best interests of the schools and the principals. I will ask the Minister of State about the matter again. I will come back to the House on that, and I know that the Minister of State is anxious to progress it. I am not clear that the number of therapists is 60, but we will work on the numbers. The idea will be to try to restore things back to the situation pre-application of the model.

Deputy Paul Murphy raised issues regarding Deputy Bruton. I am not familiar with the full details Deputy Murphy has articulated, and I believe these are matters for the House more generally to consider in respect of Members registering their interests. I have always found Deputy Bruton to be a public representative of the highest integrity. Again, I am not familiar with the specifics of what Deputy Murphy has asserted in the House this morning. I believe there are mechanisms within the Oireachtas itself to deal with issues of that kind.

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