Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The NRP acknowledges the problems with assessments of need but has less to say, when one has obtained an assessment, about the resources that are made available. I will give the Taoiseach an example. The case involving Theo, who is 13, and his parents, is quite urgent. Theo has severe autism and intellectual disability. He is in residential care but he has not been in a school environment for a year now. Since 2019, when he was in school, Theo was being sent home because the school did not have the resources to provide for his needs. The educational welfare officer and the special educational needs organiser, SENO, have said that they can find no placement for him at all. He has nowhere to go to school. All that is being offered is home tuition, which means he would be robbed of the opportunity to interact socially. His parents do not want that for him, but he is being told there is nothing else. Essentially, that is robbing Theo, a young man, of the possibility of socialisation and a proper education, which he is entitled to. That is unacceptable. I ask the Taoiseach to look into the case. Indeed, it is not only about Theo, as nobody should be put in a position whereby he or she cannot have the education he or she is entitled to.

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