Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When is the Government going to stop failing children with additional needs? Over 14,000 children are waiting for a needs assessment and 41,000 children are waiting for therapies, including speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. Hundreds of children have no school place for next September. Day and residential services for children transitioning to adulthood are almost non-existent. The Government is breaking the law every day of the week. Children with additional needs are entitled to an assessment of need within six months of referral but that is not happening. Thousands of children are waiting for far in excess of two years. If a member of the public was to break the law like that, he or she would be prosecuted. When is this Government going to be prosecuted for breaking the law each day of the week?

There are hundreds of children without a school place for next September. Families have taken to the streets in Dublin, in Cork and all over the country and have contacted Members of this House in opposition and in government on this issue. I stood here a month ago and raised the case of Michael Joseph Barrett from Cahir who is five years of age. His parents were at their wits' end because he had received seven rejections at that stage. I spoke to his mother this morning. Now he has 16 letters of rejection and no school place for next September. There is another constituent of mine, a young boy called Neil Darmody from Ardfinnan, who has a profound disability. He made his confirmation on 13 March but there was not even 24 hours of happiness in his house because on the following morning he was refused a school place in a special school. His teenage sister is a well-known and well-respected disability rights campaigner. She extracted €10 million from the Tánaiste prior to the last election and the Minister can take it from me that she will be on the Government's case. Indeed, the family has already commenced legal proceedings against the Department. When will these children get a school place for next September and when is the Government going to stop breaking the law in this regard?

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