Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The State and the Government are failing children with additional needs very badly. They are failing those on the long waiting lists for an assessment of needs and for therapies and those who are seeking to access education. I want to raise one particular case, that of a young man called Tadhg who is 11 years old. He is in sixth class in primary school and is looking forward to going to secondary school. He wants to go to.St. Joseph's, but the school has said that it cannot accept him without a new educational assessment. He has not had an educational assessment. The last assessment of needs he had was when he was three years and three months old. Understandably, the school has to know what his needs are in order to know whether it can assist him, whether it can take him in and provide for his education. His parents have been told that the local children's disability network team at Chamber House is no longer responsible for providing educational assessments. The National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, has said it does not have the resources to do it. I submitted a parliamentary question on this and was told that his parents should discuss their concerns with the school principal in the first instance, with a view to seeking the involvement of NEPS. Does the Department think that his parents had not thought of that before coming to me? They have obviously gone down that road. At the moment, Tadhg is not able to get an educational assessment and will lose his place in school.

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