John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I detect quite a lot of movement. I met the Tallaght Parents Autism Support Group recently, who are grouped together because they all have children with autism. Often, they find they are applying to the same schools for their children. They are disciplined and resilient enough not to fall into the awful trap of competitiveness with each other if there is a place available. If there was a centralised application system along the lines I am talking about and the Minister of State is gesturing towards, it would mean there would be no competition between parents. There would be a centralised system that was independent and neutral, which are some of the values of it. It would also reduce the awful costs and stress of going through the application system. If I correspond with the Minister of State separately from this, will she consider meeting this group? They have a lot of useful and productive things to say which could feed into the kind of system she is trying to develop in tandem with the NCSE in relation to streamlining the application process for children with special needs.

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