Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising a range of issues. I appreciate Deputy Boyd Barrett's point that we need to do more and do better when it comes to children’s disability services. The Minister of State, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, wrote to me specifically about a number of cases in Dún Laoghaire. There seem to be particular concerns with the scale of the teams, and the Deputy has referenced a number of individuals, such as Sam Lewis, Theo and others. There are two issues here. Indeed, this brings me to Deputy Paul Murphy's point as well.

There is a change of approach being taken in respect of school places. We will look seriously Deputy Ó Murchú’s Bill, which instinctively sounds to me to be logical, but let us look at it in more detail. A forward planning unit has now been set up in the Department of Education in relation to special schools, children with disabilities, and planning. This cannot be rocket science. People know that when a child is X age they will require a secondary school place. It seems to me that this has not been happening at an early enough point. I can stand here today and tell the Deputy with a degree of confidence that every child will have a school place in September. I get that and that is good, but it can sometimes miss the point, though, regarding the level of stress, anxiety and worry that the child and their family go through. The point is taken, and I am happy to follow up on the additional specific cases if the Deputy so wishes.

On the issue of therapy places, I can assure the Deputy, because I have looked into it, that this is not an issue of an embargo. I accept that the HSE has to live within its budget, and we can debate what is an appropriate level of workforce, etc. I can send the figures to the Deputy - I do not have them to hand - but the number of fully funded vacant posts we have in children's disability network teams-----

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